


Interstellar

by jenaicompris



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [2]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cerberus is Bad News, Collectors Come to Call, F/M, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I'm Bad At Tagging, Interspecies Liaison, Interspecies Relationship(s), Like Seriously Really Divergent, Mass Effect 2, Normandy Gets Renamed, Other, Part Two, Puppeteering is Dangerous, Seriously Cerberus is the worst, World 'Sploding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-27 00:36:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20939384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenaicompris/pseuds/jenaicompris
Summary: Part Two: After losing the turian she loves, saving the Council, and managing to keep her team together Alice is thrown into a whirlwind of unfamiliar territory. She doesn't know who she can trust - or even, it seems, exactly who she is.Note: You can read this as a standalone but there are characters introduced in Supernova that might make it difficult to understand.(This will be updated as the story is.)





	1. On the Side of Paradise

Alice had faced some pretty insurmountable odds, she realized as she was blown back by the force of the Normandy exploding.  
  
She drifted from the debris, watching the child of Deccus scatter into the matte blackness of lightless space. How long would her oxygen last? Long enough to do anything?  
  
"Joker?" she called into the comm.  
  
Silence.  
  
"Anyone?" her voice cracked inside her helmet.  
  
Silence.  
  
A sob escaped her as she floated helplessly, weightless.  
  
"Oh, Deccus. I cocked this one up," she hiccupped a little.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 90%._**  
  
"Fuck," she hissed, eyes widening.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 87%._**  
  
Alice sent out a burst of biotics, wrapping herself in a barrier.  
  
_The tank_? She thought, turning her head. When she turned it back, the tube that connected her helmet to the oxygen pack floated on the other side of her head.  
  
_Fuck_, she inhaled sharply, focusing her barrier to reconnect the pieces.  
  
**_Oxygen level at 79%._**  
  
_79%_, she thought. A full tank would last four hours and fifteen minutes. She had a little over three hours, if the barrier held. She knew it wouldn't last that long. Maybe an hour?  
  
A wave of eezo eked out from the destroyed Normandy as the bulk of the hull was pulled into the nearby planet's orbit. She watched as it passed her by.  
  
The attackers were still out there. Would they come for her? Shoot her where she floated among the stars?  
  
It would be quick, she hoped. She'd lose consciousness after 15 seconds if they breached her suit. That was fast enough.  
  
"Send coordinates to every available system," she spoke softly, keeping her breathing as even as she could. That would include the attackers. Maybe they'd capture her instead. Or they wouldn't. It would be better than this.  
  
_Anything_ would be better than **this**.  
  
She had three options as she saw it. _One_, wait until her biotics failed and suffocate. _Two_, use her thrusters to grab onto the nearest bit of debris and rocket towards the planet in a pathetic attempt to burn up in the atmosphere. _Three_, rocket towards the planet without the debris and cross her Makerdamn fingers that she made it into orbit, only to suffocate shortly thereafter.  
  
"Fuck," she grunted, feeling the strain of the maintained barrier edge into her vision.  
  
She stared into the vast expanse of space around her, feeling the panic set in. Was this what she deserved? After everything?  
  
After Virmire and those poor Salarians? After the countless lives she took or couldn't save? After failing so _spectacularly_ to convince the Council in time? After choosing to sacrifice over 2400 crewmen from the 8 cruisers for those aboard the Ascension?  
  
After living an incredible **lie**?  
  
She had done this to herself, she realized. She was the only one to blame for facing such a pathetic, meaningless death. She deserved to die as she lived.  
  
As nothing, with no one, no where.  
  
_Crazy human_, Deccus' voice echoed in her mind. _Do you think all of what you have done and seen is nothing?_  
  
_What can I do, Deccus?_

In those moments, it didn't matter to Shepard if the voice in her head was her dead lover trying to reach out to her from across the abyss or brought in my oxygen deprivation.  
  
_I have always told you to ask your questions, even if you might not like the answer. You can **fight**._  
  
Squirming against the vacuum that was space, she oriented herself with the help of her suit's thrusters towards the planet.  
  
Inhaling deeply to preserve what oxygen she did have, knowing her lungs would collapse if her plan failed and probably even if it succeeded, she released the barrier and channelled her biotics to aid the thrusters in an effort to jettison herself towards the planet.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 57%._**  
  
She imagined the feeling of being dragged into orbit was not unlike being caught in a riptide. She was jerked and jostled, fairly certain some bones had broken. She was already about to die, what did that matter?  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 43%._**  
  
Alice was floating in orbit of a planet she hadn't seen yet. Alchera. What a stupid name. What a stupid planet.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 34%._**  
  
At least she could see the stars.  
  
She forced the barrier back in place but the warning persisted.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 27%._**  
  
She couldn't stop the choked laugh as she gasped for breath.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 13%._**  
  
Her biotics were failing or the jettison into orbit had done more harm than good. She could taste blood over the mint and metal of the eezo.  
  
**_Warning: Critical Systems Failure. Oxygen level at 2%._**  
  
As she gagged, clawing at her own throat through the suit despite knowing it would do nothing, she watched the stars edge to black in her vision.  
  
Alice nar Nedas vas Normandy died as she lived, staring at the stars.

  
A mightily disgruntled groan passed soft lips as the blaring of an alarm clock erupted from somewhere to the left. Ali grimaced, flinging her freckled hand out to smash down the buttons that would give her reprieve.  
  
"I am so not ready to go to work," she grumbled into her pillow as she flopped herself over on her back. Her body ached in places she didn't know it could.  
  
"You're the one," a low voice started from the bedside, too far away for Ali to cling to even as she managed to pry open an eye, "that insisted we go out last night."  
  
Ali's husband, Declan, stood in all of his 6'7" shirtless glory with a glass of water and two aspirin tablets waiting patiently for her to stand. Compared to him, she looked like she had a tan; her much-smaller fingers greedily took his offering as she struggled to sit up. He was all sinewy and hard muscles - she often teased him about being made of metal - with skin even lighter than hers without the freckles and hair just as red shaped into a well-manicured beard but nonexistent atop his head. They had met on a singles' cruise when Ali had stepped between Declan and the wrong end of an errant squirt gun.

His voice was a deep hum, his shape all long lines that made it hard for Ali to think straight even as ahe combated nausea from her hangover. The sound she made was somewhere between a groan of disgust at her physical state of being and a whine at her acknowledgement of reality. "Let's just take a day, can't we? One more day."

Declan watched her with his honey-gold eyes for a beat longer than she would have liked before his face split into a grin. "I've already contacted your office and mine. But we **absolutely** have to resume normal life tomorrow."

Ali let out a giggle of delight, setting her empty glass on the bedside table before hopping up and absolutely clinging to the man in front of her. He caught her with one hand beneath her backside and the other in her deep red hair. 

"Looks like you're feeling better," he smirked, a challenge in his voice. 

Something _off_ pricked at the edge of Ali's mind long enough to lower the corners of her smile but she dismissed it quickly in favor of leaning into his touch. "What can I say. You have magic in your skin."

"Magic," Declan scoffed, burying his face against his wife's neck. He spoke between affectionate nibbles and suggestive kisses. "No, but I bet I can make you see stars."

She squealed girlishly as Declan dislodged her from his person and tossed her unceremoniously onto their marriage bed. Her vision flickered briefly; when it righted itself she was concerned by the lack of pillows but hardly had enough time to think on either thing before Declan stalked forward and trapped her beneath him. 

The couple lost themselves in each other and Ali loat track of her hangover; when they had exhausted each other, she curled along his side for a small catnap and dreamed of space. 


	2. Loving You is Hard, Being Here is Harder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the new (or returning) readers and to the new kudos! Not sure how to qualify the trigger warnings but...panic attacks and distorted reality are a thing here? Stay safe, readers!

When Ali finally managed to wake up again, she couldn't honestly say she felt loads better. Her stomach may have been less queasy but her body felt like she'd run for the majority of the day before without stretching. She and Declan had gone dancing but that wasn't terribly out of the ordinary; even getting a drink or three wasn't strange for the couple. They had been married for a little over two years and dating for twice as long beforehand.  
  
Declan was twenty years her senior although it wasn't something either of them ever really thought about. He was ex-military, an engineer for the government now that he had retired from service and she was working her way to a more prestigious Special Detective position with the Associated Department of Inquiry through UNAS and the Alliance.  
  
They had met when she was just nineteen, the summer between her final two years in undergraduate school. She had won a cruise on a lark, paying no mind to the theme behind it. Declan knew it was a singles' cruise but had signed up under duress; his brother had insisted.  
  
Technically, on the cruise they has been in international waters so it was no big thing for Ali to have a cocktail in her hand as she skirted around a group of chatting women that wore more make-up on a pool deck than she did to a nightclub; truthfully, it would be a point of misunderstanding in their future. Truth told, he wouldn't have likely thought twice about her if he had realized how young she was. By the time he realized it, it was more shocking but less detrimental to their relationship.  
  
Poolside on the deck of the _Eros_, Declan was trying to both enjoy the sea breeze and accomplish some modicum of work. While Ali was nonplussed about the theme of the ship once she realized, it was an all-expenses-paid vacation so she was taking advantage of the free booze and having herself the fanciest of cocktails. She wandered barefoot along the lacquered wood, skirting around deckchairs and humans that reminded her of them. She saw the squirt guns before Declan did; she also saw, as was her way, the man with expensive technology on the deck of a cruise ship. The trajectory of the stream would fry the computer, almost undoubtedly. With a grimace at the last of her cocktail that would be abandoned on the floor of the ship, Ali propelled herself forward. She caught air, although not much, and managed to end up looking like the soon-to-be-winner of a wet t-shirt contest before landing gracelessly on the other side of Declan's solo table.  
  
When it was over, the people with the squirtguns barely batted an eyelash. A crewmember cleaned up, begrudgingly, the tossed (and thankfully plastic) spilled drink, and Declan watched Ali with a bemused half-smirk from his seat. She shifted into the down position for a push-up before gathering her feet beneath her and brushing herself off.  
  
"Quite the show," he said, his voice causing an unexpected ache to bloom in her chest.  
  
She shrugged a little, pulling her nondescript blue tshirt away from her skin to inspect the damage. "Better me than that computer. Bet your equipment cost more than mine."  
  
He cracked a grin, honey-colored eyes narrowed in mirth. "Thanks."  
  
She shrugged again. "Just doing my civic duty, saving the world one..." she glanced over him from head to toe. She could glean some schematics from her angle on the screen. "...engineer at a time."  
  
He looked appropriately shocked at her correct guess of his employment and suspiciously turned his screen more away from her vision. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to stick your nose in other people's business?"  
  
Ali took it in stride. She had been orphaned at a young age, brought up in the system. She has tested well, though, and became a pet project - leading to early admission to university under the agreement she would follow the path they laid out for her. Again her delicate shoulders lifted and fell in a noncommittal gesture. "Maybe but I was too young to hear it if she did."  
  
Unlike most people when faced with such a comment, Declan didn't apologize for the unintended misstep. Instead he refocused on his computer without another word. Ali stood there for a moment longer, trying not to betray her confusion and irritation at being so easily dismissed, before she shoved her hands in her pockets and moved back in the direction she had been coming from.  
  
She was barely passed the spot over which she mourned the loss of her drink before an impossibly large hand closed over her upper arm and pulled her around to face nearly seven feet of the palest redhead she had ever seen. Ali had to take half a step back as the hand on her arm fell in order to see the man's face.  
  
"Declan," he offered with no preamble, large hand taking up space between their bodies. Hers was dwarfed by his as she took it to shake.  
  
"Ali." Her hand fit into his but the shape struck her as wrong, like the memory of a memory told twice over. She liked how it felt enough to smile, though, and slid her hands into her pockets before squinting up at him.  
  
"I owe you a drink," Declan nodded to the crewmember that was wheeling away the mop bucket. It wasn't a question or even much of an invitation. It was a factual statement, or at least as far as he was concerned it was.  
  
For the fourth time in less than as many minutes, Ali shrugged as she turned back towards the bar. "All right."  
  
The first drink they shared turned into two more, dinner, and another two rounds before Declan convinced her into dancing. Her head was swimming with lights and alcohol by the time he helped her back to her cabin. He was a perfect gentleman, despite her insistence to the contrary. They found each other for lunch the next day, and dinner. And every day after, until they docked.  
  
They exchanged phone numbers and it only two the plane ride back to D.C. for Ali to give in. He lived in New York City. A weekend trip, easily.

_Call me old fashioned, but shouldn't you be asking me to visit by now?_

Twenty minutes later, she received a response.

_You have to give a guy a chance to land, young lady._

Ali waited a beat, to see if he'd say something else. He didn't and so, not easily deterred, she replied.

_And...?_

She wondered if it made him laugh as she tossed her phone on her bed, threw her bag down beside it, and followed to flop her body horizontally along it. This conversation would be one of many and she would eventually take a train to New York City for a long weekend that would lead to many more.  
  
Ali realized, as she streched along Declan's body with the hangover still raging, that her memory was fuzzy. She didn't recall having memory problems but the story of their meeting and courtship came to her in a sort of two-dimensional way. Like the memory of a story told as though you were meant to know it already.  
  
The thought made her already aching head throb and she buried her face in her husband's neck, hand sliding up his chest. Her heart sputtered as her fingers searched for a grip they couldn't find. Then the need to find something more than the smooth, muscled plane of his hairless upper torso dissipated and her heartbeat calmed.  
  
His voice rumbled through his chest into her hand as it rested over his breastbone, his long arm curving beneath and around her. "Everything okay, Ali?"  
  
She nodded, hair mussing up against his skin. Taking in a deep breath, she shifted her body on top of his and lost herself in him again.  
  
When they resurfaced for the second time that day, her headache was worse - damn near a migraine, bringing back her earlier nausea for a different reason - and her bones felt like they were vibrating with pain. She submerged herself in the bath, locked the door, and called her therapist.  
  
"It's happening more," she spoke over the water, her body submerged up to her chin. It felt like she has been doing this for years, more frequently lately but she couldn't exactly remember her therapist's name.  
  
_Sawkach_. What was that? Polish? Russian? Some amalgamation that came up when the EU morphed into what it was now? Her mind stuck on how wrong the name sounded so much so that she almost missed what the accented voice said through the speaker.  
  
"Are you taking your medication?"  
  
_No_? She thought in response. She didn't remember taking medication. She didn't remember needing to take it. Her heart rate spiked again as she glanced at the door; Declan was quieter than someone of his size had a right to be but he wasn't silent.  
  
"Everything okay?" he called from the other side of the door. He tried the handle then sighed. "Ali?"  
  
"Just taking a bath," she called back, trying to force her voice into an even tone. "Can you run out and grab dinner?"  
  
Silence. The thump of something - hand? Fingers? - softly against the door. Another sigh and then, "Anything you hungry for?"  
  
"Zersghetti," Ali said without thinking. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth and she made a face, eyes tearing. That's not what she said. What even _was_ that? "Spaghetti, I mean." She felt scared and hoped he couldn't hear it.  
  
If he did, he didn't comment. "Italian, got it. Be back soon. Love you."  
  
"You too," she replied, holding her breath as she counted his steps away.  
  
"Ali? Ali, are you there?" Sawkach's voice came from the phone. The petite redhead shook the daze from her mind and bit her lip to suppress an unwanted sob.  
  
When she evened her breathing by swallowing, she nodded even though the other woman couldn't hear her. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here. But Doctor, I...I'm really worried something is **wrong** with me."  
  
"You're just going through some personal growth right now. Stop worrying so much. Take your medication and lie down. You'll be right as rain tomorrow."  
  
A thought caught in her head. "What about dinner? Declan-"  
  
"Don't worry about him."  
  
Before Sawkach could say anything else, Ali ended the call. Her heart rate was increasing, her breathing erratic. Tears pricked her eyes and her vision started to narrow.  
  
How could she _not_ worry? He was her **husband**.  
  
The word sat wrong in her mind, only causing her breathing to spike. Not sure what else to do, Ali dropped her whole body beneath the water and forced her breathing to stop entirely. Her throat constricted, hands clawing at her neck. Her eyes shot open and the cloudy water looked, for a moment, like the atmosphere of a planet she didn't know the name of.  
  
_Alchera_.


	3. I Don't Even Know What I'm Saying but I'm Praying for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but it felt like a natural break so eh. Enjoy!! Thanks to the new readers and kudosers! <3

His breathing beside her used to calm her, at least she thought it had. Something in her head told her it had but nothing in her felt like it did. She stared helplessly at the ceiling, their bedroom dark with the curtains drawn. Declan was asleep, had been for hours. By the time he came home, Ali had managed to scrape herself back together enough to blame her erratic behavior on the hangover. If he knew she was medicated, he didn't let on. If he knew she was seeing a therapist, he kept it to himself. It seemed disingenuous that he couldn't tell that something was wrong with her and that caught like an itch under her skin. He should know.   
  
_He_ would _know_.  
  
Throwing off her blankets with the frustration of a woman being lied to, Ali slid her toes to the cool wood of her bedroom floor. She didn't know where she was going or what, exactly, she intended to do but the pounding in her head wasn't getting better and she definitely wasn't sleeping. Standing to her full height, Ali moved to pull on her discarded pants beneath the too-big shirt of Declan's she had worn to bed. She shifted from the bedroom, drifting towards their kitchen in search of tea.   
  
Her nerves hummed distractingly as she tried to consider what she knew. She was panicking, she was hallucinating, and what she thought was a hangover definitely _wasn't_. She found, too, that she didn't know where the medication should. She considered where she _would_ likely keep it and found it, but the round-about way she had to approach it rubbed her the wrong way. It should've been immediate.   
  
When she pulled the prescription bottle out and popped the top, she stared down into it and considered her options. She could take it, assuming that it would cease her current problems or at least stymie them - or she could dump them down the sink, which felt a whole lot more like something she would do.   
  
_Echidnaperidone_.  
  
Ali wasn't an expert by any means; it sounded like a medication but she was definitely curious. After dumping the pills into the disposal, she scraped off what she could of the label and buried it in the trash compactor lest Declan glance it. If he didn't already know, this wouldn't be the right way for him to find out. And if he did, he clearly trusted her to take care of it on her own - so she didn't need to shake that trust, even if she was proving she didn't exactly deserve it. Ali pulled out her phone and did a quick search for the medication. When she pressed "search", her headache spiked and her light burst in her vision. Her hearing went wonky and she could've sworn she heard gunshots. Or an explosion.   
  
Her vision righted and she refocused on the screen. There was no such medication. She recalled the medication bottle said "for hallucinations brought on by seizures". So she searched the extranet for any information on seizure-related hallucinations. Could seizures be a result ot head trauma? Did she have head trauma?  
  
No information that she found made her feel better; seizure-related hallucinations were the _same_ every time. The medication didn't exist. And for a few minutes, she completely forgot the layout of her home.   
  
Ali didn't know why the urge struck her but she left the comfort of her modest house and found herself in the vehicle she shared with Declan. They had little use for it regularly as they lived in D.C., which had - like most of UNAS' cities - a well-developed transportation system. It was, honestly, more a display of wealth than a useful tool. As Ali considered this, she also considered how _incongruous_ it felt.   
  
_He would never._   
  
Who was _he_? Because clearly Declan **would**. She vaguely remembered, in the way one remembers a story told you about a drunken night of which you have no recollection, Declan bringing the car home.   
  
Shaking her head as she settled into the car, she leaned herself forward and clung to the steering wheel. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths. When she opened her mouth to speak, she forgot she was alone.  
  
"I feel like air," she said to no one although she thought there ought to have been someone beside her.   
  
She felt like the helium that had gone out of a balloon. Not the balloon; she was scattered, listless. The feeling was familiar but still unpleasant and disconcerting.   
  
She heard the echo of a response, like a memory breaking through a drug haze. _"Can't go floating off just yet."_  
  
The voice in her head made her heart shoot into her throat before plummeting into her stomach. Who was that? Why did it matter? And what was that _sound_ behind it?   
  
Out of her periphery she thought she caught sigh of something blue but when she turned her head, it was just the bare black fabric-covered seat. She felt her heart rate increasing and wondered briefly if she shouldn't have just taken the Makerdamn medication.   
  
She remained seated on the car with the engine off and the doors closed as she stared at the thoughts floating around her head, trying to make sense of everything.   
  
What did she **know**?  
  
Her husband-  
  
She stopped herself. That wasn't what she knew, that was what she **believed**.   
  
What did she _know_?  
  
She knew that she didn't really know anything. She knew that nothing felt real, her body felt wrong, and her memories were off.   
  
And she knew that she shouldn't have been alone in that car. She felt like part of her was missing when she looked at the empty seat but she knew, too, it wasn't Declan she expected to see. 


	4. I Miss Dancing With You the Most of All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not my favorite thing. I'm not even sure if I'm ready for this transition back to the "real" world but I had an idea and forgot to take notes on it. Sooooo. Here! :)

Eventually, Ali found her way back to Declan's side and slept fitfully as she dreamed of space and a blue-gray alien that reminded her of a bird and a praying mantis, who's name she couldn't remember.

_Charis?_

* * *

The next day was what she felt passed as normal, and the next. The bizarre not-memories faded but not enough to be forgotten. Her life resumed, largely with work at the ADI and sex with her husband. Thoughts of aliens, pills, therapists, and a man with brittle bones seemed to come less frequently. She felt hazy but content.   
  
Some days or maybe weeks later, when she woke up it wasn't to her alarm but to Declan's insistent voice. The world was dark around them and she blinked to focus.  
  
His concerned face loomed over hers as he jostled her by the shoulder. "Ali, wake up. We have to go. Something's here."  
  
What a weird way to say someone stopped by, she thought, sitting up groggily. Sounds flooded her ears; car alarms, crashes, and screams she had no business being able to hear. The windows rattled after an explosion shook them, nearly toppling Declan over onto her.  
  
Declan's eyes scanned her before his attention jerked to the door. He seemed to lose himself in thought as Ali found her feet, although she was unsure what to do with them when she did. Declan grabbed her quickly to him, holding her by the shoulders with hands that made her look like a doll. His face looked paler than usual and tinged with blue. He seemed to be edged with static, but that was _impossible. _  
  
"Stay safe, Ali. Keep Normaundie safe too," he said stoically, one hand moving to cover her abdomen. Her eyes widened.  
  
She was pregnant? There was no way she was pregnant. She didn't feel pregnant! And when had they picked a name?! What had she missed in her haze? Why couldn't she remember going to the doctor or even taking a pregnancy test? Something about the name felt right, though; although, at the same time, something about the idea of being pregnant felt so far removed from possible that it threw her for another loop. A flash of blue; an image of an alien form she didn't recognize in her memory with the colors all washed out, an anguished scream in her memory.   
  
Shaking her head a little she nodded, despite feeling like she was watching her body from the outside as Declan guided her to get her shoes on. The front door collapsed inward before she had a chance.  
  
The bizarre slashing of a memory over reality made her vision blur and distort, coupled with the explosion debris and dust caused her to stumble from where she was to the floor just inside their bedroom door. Declan's hands underneath her arms lifted her and propelled her towards their closet.  
  
_Shoes_ she thought, as she scrabbled to find something despite the cacophony around them. Declan was gone; he was there picking her up and then he was gone again. She couldn't hear his voice through the din of footsteps and shouts at the far end of the house. It was as though he had simply _disappeared. _Her chest felt hollow, although she didn't feel nearly as worried as she should have. She felt numb more than anything, sounds distant and muffled. Her vision seemed to be through a camera, like a first-person vid. Like she was watching the world through a screen instead of through her own eyes. The screams started again in the distance. 

What Ali found on the closet floor was more than the soft shoes she slid onto her feet; a heavy box rested there. A prickling at the base of her skull made it impossible for her to turn away; it felt like time stilled when she saw it, the brief silencing of the world around her. She reached her fingers out and grazed the edge of the box as though the world wasn't collapsing in on itself around her. The house shook with an impact that didn't make any sense to her and her next breath in felt too hard, like the atmosphere was thinning. Jerking her hand back from the box and to her own throat, she gasped for breath. 

When her hand scraped at her neck, she felt something more than her own skin. The bumps of a hand or something like it, although she could see no one to whom it might be attached. Squeezing her eyes shut, she focused as best she could on keeping her breathing even and trying to work her fingers beneath the clamp around her neck that wasn't really there. 

Blips of blue light popped up on the back of her eyelids, converging in various spots in ways that converged into unfamiliar shapes. Clenching her jaw and her eyelids, she honed in on the blue dots that extended out away from her neck. The lines soon made sense, as little sense as the rest of the exercise made to her. With a guttural screech, she pushed out with both her hands and her mind. Her mouth tasted like blood, metal, and mint.

She could _breathe_.

At least until she opened her eyes again. 

Her house was gone, replaced by stark white walls, beeping machines, the sounds of gunfire, and way too many wires. Gone were her night clothes, her shoes, her wedding ring. Her head _throbbed_ and the smell of burning hair, singed plastic, and --

_"Wake up, Commander." _

An accented female voice surrounded her and Alice blinked, her brain still feeling like she had been drinking for a year and had only just decided to stop thirty seconds ago. 

_"Shepard. Do you hear me? Get out of that bed now! This facility is under attack."_

The voice was unfamiliar. Her surroundings were unfamiliar. Her body felt sluggish, broken, bruised. Her mind was no better. She struggled into a seated position, struck by the unfamiliar surroundings. 

_"Shepard, you haven't healed but I need you to get moving. We are under attack. There's a pistol in the locker on the side of the room. Grab your weapon and armor."_

"Who the fuck are you?" she hissed, her voice hoarse and her throat raw from disuse. She felt like she had cobwebs in her neck. Maybe a baby Rachni had found a new home.

_"That doesn't-"_ a high-pitched metallic screech drowned out whatever the voice intended to say and then it was radio silence.

"Well, fucking _great_," she sighed, surveying her surroundings. Sliding to the floor, she ducked behind the metal slab she had been laid out on and scanned the room. She spotted the lockers - and, smashed into the bank of them was a sparking mech with a broken hand.

She smirked when she put two and two together, kicking it for good measure as she approached to investigate. She withdraw the pistol from its hiding place - without a thermal clip, because **of course **\- and strapped on what armor she could find. All the while, flashes of her life that wasn't came back like memories that intermingled with the truth. Was she married to Declan or had she loved an alien named Deccus? Was it both? Was she an Alliance Commander (as the overhead voice had suggested) or was she a part of a government organization, a paper pusher?

Shaking her head, Alice moved quickly before kneeling near the robot; it was a mech. A hospital mech, it looked like. But if she was a patient - which of course she was, why else would she be here? - why would it attack her? 

"What I wouldn't give to have Tali here," she mumbled to herself, partially numb fingers digging into the mechanics. The thought struck her as both odd and entirely appropriate. Before she could find anything worth finding, an explosion sounded by the door and she had to duck to narrowly avoid flying debris. The sound of doors opening drew her attention and, glancing from her kill to her way out, she left without any answers in an attempt to try and find some more. 


	5. And I Won't Get Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Muse has returned!

The facility didn’t look familiar to Alice in any of her memories – the ones that involved Declan or the ones that involved Deccus. She didn’t have time to worry about which reality was  _ real _ because the shots being fired at her definitely were. The place was crawling with mechs and every single one of them wanted to take her out. Alice wasn’t sure if they were after  _ her  _ or if she was just getting in their way – because they were in hers. She wasn’t  _ entirely _ sure where she was going but she knew she couldn’t stay still. There had to be some kind of shuttle, unless everyone had already vacated. If that was the case, she could find the comm room and call for help. All she knew for certain was that she needed to be not where she was. 

It took longer than she wanted to admit but eventually she found her way to a hunched person, appearing to be both a male and a soldier from behind; her beliefs were at least somewhat confirmed when he turned and said, “Shepard, what the hell?” despite the barrage of fire from mechs across the open air between walkways. He turned back to take a headshot at a mech and Alice crouched to cover the distance between herself and this new person.

She didn't recognize the deep, warm brown of his face or the concerned but welcoming look in his eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still a work in progress?”

Alice had no idea what he was talking about but he was shooting the guys that were shooting at her, so she’d take the risk. “Aren’t we all?” she asked with a slight smile, eyes shifting to the clear wall that separated the two of them from encroaching assailants. A few shots shook the panel near her arm and when the firing died down, she turned and let off a few shots with her pistol. She was much improved from the ‘shit shot’ that Deccus had called her years ago.

It took her a moment to realize that that was a memory and the realization left a new weight settling on her shoulders as she ducked back down to speak to the man beside her. “Do I know you?”

“Ah, sorry, I forgot this is all new to you. I’m Jacob Taylor, I work with Miranda.”

“Is she the one that likes to tell you what to do in really cryptic phrasing?” Alice snorted, ducking her head as another shot flew towards them.

Jacob cast her a bemused look before popping over the barrier to volley shots back. “It must be worse than I thought if Miranda has you out and about. Let’s get you safe, then I’ll fill you in.”

The idea of someone needing to keep  _ her _ safe left her rankled. Memories or stories of memories flashed through her head, a large blue light pulling panels of ships and aliens alike into it. They worked together to get through the onslaught that came in the form of machines. Alice considered asking this Jacob person to clarify what in the absolute hell was going on but decided getting somewhere that they wouldn’t be immediately accosted was their primary concern. 

“Science is something,” Jacob offered offhandedly as they made their way to the nearest set of doors. “First time I met you, you were nothing but meat and tubes.”

The phrase caught Alice off-guard. She was, as far as she could tell, whole. Without much thought, a hand flew to her face and her fingers explored the ridges of her features. She felt intact. How could she have been what Jacob described? Why didn’t she  _ remember _ ?

“What happens here?” she asked, skin feeling itchy. Jacob hesitated before the doors could open and turned back around to look at the woman that should’ve been dead.

“This is the Lazarus Project. Miranda, it was her job to bring you back.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.” He paused, eyes narrowing at her. “Do you know who you are?”

“Sort of,” she replied as honestly as she could. “There’s more than one option in my head.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I knew, I’d explain it better,” she laughed hoarsely. “There are different...paths, different memories of who I am or was or something. I have no idea which one is right.”

“Any of them involve you being Alliance?”

“Most of them.”

“ _ Most _ ?” Jacob asked incredulously as he readied his weapon to continue their trek.

Since waking and moving about,  _ more _ instances had flooded Alice’s head. Some of them involved Declan, some a dark-haired man named Kaidan. One involved a man with gray hair that looked out of place; he was tall, even taller than Declan. Charis? Chris? That one seemed harder to recall. She nodded again as she found Jacob’s eyes. “Some form or another, yeah. Or something close to it. Why?”

“You’re Alice Shepard, ma’am. Lieutenant Commander of the Alliance. You’re a hero. You single-handedly amassed a group and took down batarian raiders on Elysium before your second full year in service. You saved the Council and almost your whole crew when your ship was gunned down over Alchera.”

_ Alchera _ . The word made her shiver but she didn’t know why. She blurted, “I’ve always said it wasn’t just me,” before the words could be second-guessed. She thought, maybe, Jacob was telling the truth. She would have to sort out which bits and pieces this made true.

Before either of them could continue, Jacob heard a comment in his ear and spoke to Wilson. When he mentioned the name, Alice frowned. It sounded familiar but she didn’t know why. “Wilson needs us to go to his position. You ready to push?”

“Always.”

As they made their way to this Wilson person, they found a few different labs and Alice refused to let Jacob push her when she saw a detailed image of her body floating in a hologram. Upon inspection, Alice found documentation about her time as the Lazarus Project. The details of her arrival, her recovery, the experiments. She didn’t understand some of it but she downloaded it to the Omni-Tool she and Jacob had recovered for inspection later. There were pages and pages of notes. She needed to understand.

When the two of them finally found Wilson, he immediately set her on edge. The angle of his wound was wrong. He offered too much information. 

Alice had been a liar all her life and she knew how to spot them; especially the bad ones. She kept it to herself, watching Jacob instead as she let Wilson dig his grave. Alice hadn’t known Jacob but half an hour and she already  _ knew _ he was deeply loyal to Miranda. This made the commentary Wilson spewed on the woman Alice didn’t know even more damning in her opinion.

He was either backpedaling or just a completely incompetent coward when they were set upon by more mechs; either way he was useless and Alice couldn’t find it in her hear to forigve him the simpering foolishness as he waited for a woman that had just come out of a coma and a soldier to take down their attackers. When they’d finished dispersing the assailants, Jacob turned to Alice. “I think we need to get you on the shuttle now.”

The three of them left the control room and made their way to the shuttle bay. Before they reached it, Wilson said something that caught Alice behind the ear. 

“You’ll need to hand over your weapons before you can get into the shuttles. The space is finicky,” he spoke as nonchalantly as he could but it wasn’t enough to fool a liar.

Alice drew her pistol on him, pointing it at his back. “Turn around, Wilson.”

Jacob looked at her, wide-eyed, but didn’t lift his own gun. “What’s going on, Shepard?”

“He’s lying,” she replied calmly and Wilson turned around to face her, hands in the air. “Your story has been fishy since the angle of your leg injury.” She gestured with her pistol to his thigh, tempted to give him another hole for his trouble but deciding against it. “Looks like you forgot to get a mech to do it for you. You can’t shoot  _ down _ and expect anyone to believe you took the bullet from somebody else.” She glanced at Jacob, sorry to make him feel any sort of less than because he hadn’t seen it or hadn’t caught on. She had been the one to apply the medigel, so maybe he hadn’t gotten a good enough look. “You should’ve made a statement about seeing Miranda die. Should’ve said she sent you to disable the mechs. If you knew anything about Jacob you’d know he trusts her. Hell, I know that and I’ve only known him for the last hour. I don’t know shit about shit but I  _ do _ know you are  _ full _ of it.”

Before Jacob could question her further, the door in front of them slid open to reveal Miranda. She held her gun aloft, trained on Wilson’s back as soon as she sighted it. “Good instincts, Shepard,” she offered, shifting around to get the appropriate angle on him before she pulled her trigger.

Blood spattered on Alice’s borrowed armor and she made a face, wiping a hand no longer holding her pistol across her cheek. “Ah, fuck. Give a girl some warning, would you?”

“Why would you do that, Miranda?” Jacob asked, accusatory as Wilson’s limp body collapsed to the floor between them. 

“He was a traitor. He sabotaged the security systems, killed my staff, and likely would’ve killed the three of us if he had been given a chance. He did try.”

Alice shrugged a little, pistol holstered and free hands palms-up. “I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Although it would’ve been nice to ask him  _ why _ .”

“Before or after he put a bullet in your back? I couldn’t risk it. I’ve spent too much time and money to bring you back, Shepard.”

“Whose money was it, exactly?” Alice asked as she picked her way around the body and Jacob followed her. Miranda looked passed her to the Lazarus soldier.

“I’m impressed. Your conscience didn’t get the better of you.”

“There wasn’t a lot of time,” he justified, although why Alice wasn’t entirely sure. It seemed like, at least to his superior, he had made the right choice. “Lying to the Commander isn’t the best way to get her to trust us.”

“Wait, who’s lying to me? We see what lying gets us,” she gestured vaguely behind her to the body on the floor. She wondered idly if she could take Miranda and Jacob at such close range if it became necessary but decided it was best to avoid being too confrontational until she had more of an advantage or, at the very least, was at less of a disadvantage. 

“We haven’t lied, not specifically,” Miranda clarified as she led the way to the shuttles. “My boss will clarify your questions when we arrive.”

“I dislike being kept in the dark,” Alice let out a frustrated sigh as she folded her arms over her chest. “Is there anything you  _ will _ tell me?”

“How much does she know?”

Jacob shook his head, “Not much.”

“Hello, right here,” Alice groused, waving her hand as if to call attention to the fact that she existed. 

The dark-haired woman continued as if the redhead hadn’t made a sound, looking over her shoulder briefly at her. “We obtained your body after the attack on the Normandy. We build this place to rebuild you. It has been two years since you, as far as anyone else knows, died.”

“ _ Died _ ?” Alice’s throat went dry and her eyes wide at the word. The idea of being nothing but “meat and tubes” was one thing but to hear that everyone she knew - however short the list might be - thought she was  _ dead _ was something else entirely. What about Garrus? Wrex? Kaidan?  _ Oh god, Kaidan _ . She remembered Deccus, as completely as he had been hers and the hologram. Did it still exist somewhere? Could she find it in a record? What happened to her apartment? Her mind spun with the implications of her death and subsequent resurrection. “You couldn’t just leave me be?” she groused, choking a little on her tears. She didn’t know these people and certainly didn’t trust them; she wouldn’t show them that weakness.

“Yes,” Miranda did not offer further commentary on the subject. 

“I have...a lot of questions,” Alice stated finally as she was ushered into a transport pod. “For starters, where are we going?”

“To another outpost. One where you’ll meet my boss.”

“Does your boss have a name?” Alice asked as Miranda closed the hatch over and began to set them on their course.

“Probably. But we call him the Illusive Man.”

Alice’s head pounded at the name. 

Fucking  **Cerberus. **


	6. You Did It, I Never

Alice was not amused. She was particularly pissed that Miranda waited until after they were sealed on the shuttle to reveal the information that she no doubt knew that Alice would rebel against. That an the fact that they hadn’t even considered there were survivors; there undoubtedly wouldn’t be now. This Miranda confirmed was because no one else mattered. She would’ve left Jacob behind or expected him to do the same if it meant getting Shepard out.

“You should’ve told me,” she spoke through gritted teeth, arms crossed tightly over her torso as she looked at the stars and not her captors. 

“So you could stay on the station and rot with the mechs? This is the only shuttle, Shepard. I spent two years of my life bringing you back from the dead. I would’ve dragged you kicking and screaming if I had to.”

Alice snorted in response to that. “I would like to see you try,” she muttered, not even sparing the other woman a glance. Jacob was right about at least one thing; not being honest about their employer definitely didn’t endear them to her. Not that being honest about it from the beginning would’ve changed anything.

“You have been all but dead for the last two years. I, however, have not,” she replied as if to convince Alice of her viability. The taste of mint and metal coated Alice’s mouth and she saw the shift in her vision she began to remember was something like biotics. Flashes of people and panels pulled into a pit of gravity made her feel like it was real and not a forced memory. Her hand glowed blue and she frowned before it disappeared. 

“Yeah, well, who survived dying once already?” she retorted, not willing to give ground even to the person that spearheaded her recovery. 

Miranda, it appeared, was done with the verbal sparring and instead set the ship on auto-pilot to their destination before sitting with Jacob across from Alice in the cramped space afforded. “We have to assess your stability before I allow you to see the Illusive Man.”

_ Allow _ , Alice thought. “Like I have a choice?” Miranda’s facial expression confirmed the redhead’s suspicion that she, in fact, did not. “Whatever.”

“More tests?” Jacob scoffed. “She took down more mechs than I did. And she sniffed Wilson out. That has to be good enough.” Alice noted that he neglected to mention her discussion of multiple memory paths and wondered idly why. Was he trying to endear himself to her? Could he have forgotten? Did he know something she didn’t? Well, the answer to the last one was most definitely at the very least.

“We need to know that her personality and memories are intact.”

“Right. Here.” Alice glowered. She wondered if that was the right personality before rolling her eyes a little at her own thoughts. That felt like it, at least.

“Start with personal history,” Miranda skipped over the other woman’s response as she withdrew a tablet from somewhere in their general vicinity; had they prepared so readily for this eventuality? The thought made her stomach churn.

“Records show,” Jacob started, eyes narrowing at the information, “Well...the official Alliance records have you as enlisting in 2174 at eighteen. The enlistment information says your mother and father died earlier that year, leaving you an orphan on Earth.”

Some of that was true, she considered. And it felt like it was the  _ real  _ truth too. Not the part about her parents dying just before she was eighteen or that she was actually eighteen when she enlisted. But this mistruth rang true as hers, at least. “Yeah,” she confirmed as much as she was willing. “That’s right.”

“When you were on Elysium before what was meant to be your first away mission, you faced insurmountable odds against a fleet of batarian raiders. You pushed your biotics beyond what anyone expected and, essentially, saved the day. Do you remember that?”

In truth, only vaguely. She lifted a hand to run across where the scar of her implant had once been. It was gone. She made a face. “What-”

“The Illusive Man,” Miranda interjected. “He knew of your disapproval of the thing. Decided not to include it in the rebuild, so to speak.”

Alice hated that she appreciated something the Illusive Man had done for her. She wasn’t entirely sold on being alive again but if she had to be, being without the damned implant was an improvement. 

“I didn’t agree with him. I thought it could’ve served as a mind control chip. With all of the money and time invested in you, it only makes sense to ensure your loyalty. He disagreed.”

Alice made a face at the brunette and made a note to never trust her. Still, though, another thing that she appreciated on behalf of the head of Cerberus. It made her nauseous. “Yes, though,” the redhead eventually turned back to her male captor. That wasn’t fair;  _ he _ at least seemed remorseful about the situation to some degree. More memories came flooding back; of Zersa’s restaurant, of Deccus and the bullet in her side. She reached for her neckline and felt tears prick her eyes at the lack of necklace there. 

“Your bullet?” Miranda asked. “It had fused with your skin when we found you.”

Alice’s hand pressed against the chestplate on her borrowed armor, her breastbone itching with the news. And her anklet? She had truly lost everything and it made her so,  _ so _ mad. Gritting her teeth, she looked at the brunette with zero emotion in her eyes and no hint of the tears that had threatened only seconds before. “What else do you want to know.” It was a question but not phrased as such.

“That information is all well and good, but I want something more recent. Tell me what happened when Sovereign attacked.”

Alice’s face blanched at the statement. She had been struggling to make sense of her memories or her reality since before she had woken up in that hospital room and now this random woman that treated her more like a prize than a person wanted her to try to recall a whole series of events? She wondered idly what would happen if she was wrong. 

“I made Saren see the error of his ways,” she replied in a deadpan, still looking at the stars as they passed them. She rested her hot forehead against the temperature-regulated of the porthole and wished that it was like cool glass on Earth. “Or more that he was a pawn being played by Sovereign and that he had a choice to do something about it. He didn’t think he had much of a choice, though, and shot his jaw off. Sovereign was already inside the arms with us and the fleet would’ve had to pass by the Ascension to get to us. There was no point in letting the Council die so I didn’t. I didn’t know when I made the command but Sovereign... _ took over _ Saren’s body, like a geth husk.” Alice shivered, eyes distant even though they were not aimed at the other two passengers. Jacob could see the light gone from their depths and worried more than he would admit. “I have never seen a body move like that. There was nothing of Saren left save for some of his organic matter. I was thankful for that, at least. Saren was a victim even if he caused a  _ lot _ of damage. I had a guess at the mind control before then; the Rachni Queen mentioned something like it. So did the Salarians and the asaris, the Thorian.” Alice shook her head and sat up a little straighter. Her gaze shifted to those across from her but it was apparent she had little interest in them. “When I met him on Virmire, he still had a chance. If only I had…” she frowned deeply and scrubbed a hand over her face. At the time, she had no idea how she could’ve possibly gotten through to him. She had spent  _ months _ going over it in her head afterward.  _ If only, if only _ … Sighing heavily, she finally looked at Miranda. “We killed him. It. Sovereign, there in the Citadel. Garrus, Tali, and I. The Alliance finished off the husk of it, the ship but it had transferred part of itself into Saren’s body and that was what we destroyed.”

Alice remembered more than that. She remembered things that, she considered, might not be true. She remembered a man named Declan and their house being ransacked. She remembered a man named Declan and the whole of Earth being destroyed. She remembered Kaidan - Kaidan that she knew from the Alliance, only this time he was more than her one-time lover. She remembered their life together until the Reapers came back and took him from her. She remembered a man with gray hair that seemed taller than he should’ve been, his eyes so blue that they hurt and how his voice never sounded right. Charis, she thought. He was taken from her too and she razed the planet to the ground in retaliation. 

She wanted to know who those people were, where they had come from, and why the memories seemed like lifetimes in her head. The more she thought about this Alice - the Commander of the Alliance, the one who lied her way into service, the one who had loved Deccus Abiso and lost him, the one that had been unable to save Saren and lost so many lives because of it...This Alice, this life felt like the one that had truly lived despite the intensity of the memories of the other ones. 

“You look like you have something to say,” Miranda stated.

“You ought to get your eyes checked,” she replied, lips pursed. Yes, Alice wanted answers; but she had no illusions that Miranda would give them to her. She had taken the data from the Lazarus Project and when she finally got away from prying eyes she would tear into it. She would learn the truth of what happened to her on her own terms. 

Jacob made a sound but Alice didn’t know him well enough to determine if it was disbelief or amusement and she didn’t really care too much either. 

Alice stewed on their interactions and her situation the short rest of the way to docking and being led to the room she was left in. It didn’t look like a meeting room and when she saw the orange lights start at her feet she realized what was happening.

Again, Alice was not amused. She stood with her arms folded across her chest as she gazed through into the too-bright eyes of a holo-version of a man with whom she had no desire to speak. She did not say a word and instead waited for him. He took a heavy pull on his cigarette as he sat across a room from where she was being projected in his presence.

"Commander Shepard."

"Doubt that," she replied under her breath but did not give him leave to use any other version of her name.

"I am glad to see you're well."

"I didn't ask you for this," she frowned deeply, the first mention she had made about her displeasure at being alive again. Although it wasn't as though she had known she was dead. "Did you ever think I might not want this?"

"I honestly didn't think it mattered."


	7. Opulence is the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mildly shorter than the last two but I wanted to get some crew members back in scene before the beginning of the next chapter, which will take us to Omega. Man, I missed writing this. <3 Thank you to the readers and the new kudoser!

Seeing Tali again was like a punch to the gut; she looked at her like she was a stranger but spoke to her more kindly than she thought she would’ve. 

“We can’t let Cerberus take this over,” Tali offered by way of explanation to Alice when she declined the offer to return to her ship.

“I’m here because of Cerberus but I am  _ not _ a part of it,” Alice replied firmly, not caring that Miranda and Jacob were at her back. She had brokered no agreement, pledged no allegiance, sworn no fealty. 

It didn’t make a difference, at least not an obvious one. Prazza betrayed them because of course he did - in all honesty, Alice didn’t blame him even if he made her life harder. Veetor, however, was more helpful than he could’ve been.

Miranda, though, was not. Alice groaned inwardly when the brunette spouted off about needing to take Veetor and Tali responded in the negative.

“No,” Alice affirmed. “Veetor goes with Tali. She will send us the data from his Omni-Tool and I trust any information she obtains otherwise.” The quarian nodded and Alice felt the tenseness in her shoulders relax. Miranda, surprisingly, backed down.

“Glad to see you’re still in command,” Tali offered.

“Honestly, me too,” Alice laughed a little and was desperately sad when the quarian didn’t respond as she once had to the human’s bad jokes. She missed her friend; to her, she had only just left to rejoin the Flotilla. She had seen Tali only a week before, happy and nervous to go home again. To the quarian, Alice was a ghost. 

She was beginning to feel like one too as they trekked back across space so that she could speak to the Illusive Man again. She felt like a shell of herself as she tried to wrap her head around the Collectors, the Reapers, and a man with eyes that looked a little off. She couldn’t see him well enough in the dark hologram but there was something wrong with him. There was so much he wasn’t telling her and the fact that he hadn’t even mentioned the Collectors to her set her on edge moreso than she already was. Then he all but ordered her to seek out the Salarian scientist and she was about ready to flip him the bird and walk into space for the second time.

Instead she gritted her teeth so hard she was surprised she did chip one and turned around to be led by Miranda to the ship she was going to, at least in name, command. When she saw it in the docking back, she stopped short. 

“Absolutely fucking not,” she shook her head, planting her feet and balling her fists at her sides. They glowed blue and her eyes shot daggers at the hull. “What kind of-” she stopped, feeling nausea well in her stomach. It was bigger, flashier. She imagined it was faster and more spacious as well. But it wasn’t  _ her _ ship. It wasn’t the real Normandy. It was a fake, trumped up version. “Is this what you did to me?” she asked as she took a few steps closer, setting her hand on the side of it like it was a great beast and not a ship. “Did you rebuild something that had a purpose and twist it, make it a gross caricature?” 

Whipping her head to Miranda, she glared at her as though the heat of her gaze could melt the woman. She could taste the mint and metal on her tongue and her vision tinged hazy blue. “Tell me. What did you do to me?”

Miranda, surprisingly, took a step back. “We didn’t put in an implant. We regrew, essentially. Made you whole. You’re still human.”

“What about the memories, Miranda? The ones that aren’t mine. What. Did. You. Do.” She rounded on the other woman, hand sliding off of the side of the ship as she advanced. Miranda was taller but Alice didn’t feel intimidated in the least. She was  _ too valuable _ . The other woman wouldn’t raise a hand against her. 

“We were running scenarios,” she explained, more readily than Alice had anticipated. “We built situations that we thought likely based on the Illusive Man’s knowledge of what was going on and ran scenarios through your consciousness to glean your reactions.”

They broke her heart dozens of times - every minute she took breath, she remembered another instance where she lost someone that mattered to her - for their own benefit. They brought her back because they  _ needed _ her. They wanted her to be their pawn, their plaything.

They would learn, apparently the hard way, not to play with fire. 

Alice quelled her anger and rolled her shoulders, still eyeing Miranda suspiciously. “Change the fucking name of this ship,” she demanded, waving her hand at the side of it. “This isn’t the Normandy and it never will be. I don’t care if the time it takes means losing the war. I will not leave this dock until you do. If you or the Illusive Man knew half as much about me as you thought you did, you never would have dared.” She stopped and spun around again. “Why the fuck are you still here? Get it changed.”

Miranda stared at her for a long moment before she disappeared back out to the bay and beyond. Alice leaned against the wall that led into the ship that she would never call the Normandy. Her ship, and the turian that had helped it build it, were long gone. She grimaced at the panels that were fancier than Alliance ships would allow. Turians built their ships for speed and utility. Alliance at least for the latter. This was not a ship like those she had travelled in; it was the grotesque, grandiose facsimile of one. It made her skin crawl with every step, as though she was betraying Deccus by standing there.

She would never forgive Cerberus for a great many things but this one in particular - the sting from this slight would keep her at arm’s length for a good long while. She continued into the body of the ship.

It was far too big. If she had had to run to bring Joker to the shuttles from the cockpit on this monster, there was no way he would’ve made it. Images of the Normandy on fire superimposed themselves over her reality and she shook her head, turning towards the CIC. 

“Commander?”

Her breath caught in her throat. Was that a memory or the truth? Spinning quickly at the sound of her title, Alice saw a familiar face in a reclining pilot’s chair.

Jeff Moreau looked at her as though her presence had punched him squarely in the diaphragm  and broken all the ribs around it. "Com-...Alice.” “

She approached him and tried to manage some form of a smile but wasn’t sure she had. “Joker? Is that you?” The smile came then as she approached and she watched him sit up slowly, delicately.

His eyes widened with every step she took towards him and he looked sick. “I...I’m sorry.”

In truth, she had very briefly considered that she might like to berate him were she given the  opportunity. Going down with one's ship was the captain's job and she was as close as they  had. She understood, though, his desperate need to save the Normandy regardless of how  asinine the endeavor really was. More than anyone else possibly could’ve, she understood.

However, the desire to do anything other than lay a very gentle hand on his shoulder had  long-since disappeared. Especially when she was otherwise completely alone with a group of people that clearly didn’t know her from the next redheaded Earth-born liar. "You didn't shoot my ship out of the sky, so as far as I'm concerned you haven't got anything to apologize for."

"You  _ died _ . If I hadn't-"

"Technically, sure. But only for, like, a minute." She grinned at him, ignoring the hollow feeling in  her chest and the itch at the base of her skull that shouldn’t have been there. Ignoring the panic that encased her heart when she closed her eyes or saw the stars. Ignoring the memory of the time that had been stolen by Cerberus. Ignoring the feeling of debt to the Illusive Man. "There is absolutely no use dwelling on it, Joker. It won't change anything. So please, listen to me when I say, we are good. You have nothing to apologize for and there is no one in any galaxy I'd rather have pilot my ship."

"What about on your ground crew?" Another voice, one she had heard only hours or days before in her own experience, came up beside her and took the form of the adopted Gunnery Chief from Eden Prime. "Still have any openings?"

"Williams?" Alice gaped a little, turning her body to face the taller woman. "What are you doing here?" She shifted to look back at Joker. "What are _both_ of you doing here? Working with Cerberus?"

The former Alliance pilot and infantry woman shared a look before Joker replied, "A lot has changed since you've been gone, Shepard."

Alice moved over to lean against part of the cockpit that separated Joker's position from the copilot's and folded her arms over her chest. She looked from one person to the other. "Well, Miranda is fixing the monumental fuck up Cerberus made by naming this ship something they had no right to. We've got time."


	8. So You Think You're In Charge?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some borrowed dialogue lines, although I don't think they're said by the original speaker. Thanks to CabritoSentado for picking up where they left off and leaving a comment for me. :) Thanks to all those reading and leaving kudos! Some of this probably feels like game rehashing and it might for a little while but I promise, there are things in the works!

Oh, he had most definitely done it on purpose. There was no question in Alice’s mind when they finally took off for Omega in the newly-dubbed Dunkirk that the Illusive Man had known _ exactly _ the shit he was pulling when he named the ship after her first. This was emphasized by the wide-open skylight that took up the entirety of the ceiling above her oversized bed. On her back, she had no choice but to look at the stars.

Alice loved the stars and always had; even the panicked memory of losing consciousness among them could only hinder her appreciation so much. But she wasn’t sure how easy it would be to sleep, staring down her death every time. And she also knew that it, like everything else the Illusive Man had orchestrated, was _ intentional _.

He wanted her to appreciate him - why else would he neglect to have another implant drilled into her head? Unchecked, she was more dangerous to herself and to him. He had insisted she be brought back the way she was when she defeated Sovereign but at the same time granted her this boon - this reprieve form constant headaches, the ability to expand her abilities beyond the confines of Alliance-imposed technology. He gave her two familiar faces to endear him to her or something like it; offering Williams and Joker as a peace-offering amongst the sea of faces that she didn’t know from Adam. 

He also wanted her to respect him - or maybe fear him. He wanted her to know that he knew more than she wanted him to and he wanted her to know that he was not afraid to use that knowledge to his advantage. He wanted her to know that she was his and that he would do with her as he pleased.

Alice did not like being _ owned _ . She absolutely itched at the thought that this _ person _ thought he could pull her strings. 

He wanted her to feel _ watched _; he sent his right-hand woman, Miranda, with her and implemented a drive on the Dunkirk called EDI. 

_ ‘I observe and offer analysis and advise. Nothing more.’ _

The commander called bullshit. _ Nothing more, _ her freckled ass. Alice knew the _ very illegal _ AI was reporting back to the Illusive Man just as well as she knew and everyone else in the galaxy knew that Omega was a seedy-ass planet. 

She would not be trifled with. She would not be manipulated. She was not a _ thing _, weapon or otherwise, to be owned. The Illusive Man would come to regret his decision to bring her back from the dead if she had anything to say about it.

And, knowing Alice, of course she did.

When they docked on Omega, she was doing her best to get into the headspace she needed to be productive. The Makerdamn batarian didn’t help but she managed to keep a straight face all the way through her meeting with Aria. She found that she appreciated the asari; the blue alien was manipulative but not quiet about it, something Alice could at least respect. 

After saving a kid only slightly older than she was when she joined the Alliance from himself, they were on their way to join the mercenary groups against the being known as Archangel. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Shepard?” Jacob asked in the shuttle. 

Her only response was, “Yes.” and they continued the rest of the short ride in silence. After a bit more talking, investigating, and creating a plan she left Jacob and Miranda with the freelancer group to find the Cathka fellow in charge. 

Sergeant, he reminded her only a moment before she shorted out his suit and quite literally stabbed him in the back. She felt a little bad about it; killing was never her preference but was often necessary. And sabotaging the gunship, along with those heavy mechs, could prove incredibly helpful in the future. With the help of Miranda and Jacob, they counted the freelancers ahead of them and held back until the last possible moment.

The distant, blue-armored figure took out two of the first three freelancers. One got through, she ticked off in the list in her head. There were nine more and three of them took out a third of that force before anybody recognized what they were doing. Archangel took headshots at two more. All in all, five made it further into the lair of Archangel than any of them would’ve liked but they didn’t make it to the agitator himself.

“Archangel?” 

He waved his hand for silence and she studied his posture as he took out one they'd missed, forgotten, or had sent after they had left. He was a turian; Alice knew that shape like her own. Before he pulled off his helmet, she was already praying to the Maker that her hunch was right. She knew only two turians that had ever held a gun like that; that had ever been such a shot like that. One of them had been dead for too many years but the other…

“Garrus?” she hissed a breath, eyes wide as the helmet thunked against an armor-plated thigh. “Garrus, is that you?”

“..Shepard?” he repeated, eyes narrowed - one behind a telltale visor. “I thought you were dead.”

“I was,” she replied, taking a step towards him. “Maker, Garrus, it’s _ good _ to see you.” She wouldn’t let the tears of relief come, not yet. Instead she would grin at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, you know...keeping my skills sharp while I waited for you to return from the dead,” he scoffed, mandibles shifting into a snarky smile. 

Alice surveyed his armor; it had seen better days. “Are you okay?” She wanted to go to him, to touch his shoulder; to make sure he was real because he _ had _ to be real. Memories of a gray-haired man that was too tall and was taken from her too roughly, Charis, made her heart drop into her stomach. 

“Alive. Been better. But Spirits, it is good to see your face,” his mandibles fluttered in a motion she had seen only a handful of times on his face but more than once on Deccus’. 

“This ugly mug?” she grinned back at him, feeling warmth shift through her bones. He hadn’t immediately commented on the Cerberus link for which she was incredibly thankful. He hadn’t recoiled and seemed bizarrely okay with the fact that she had been dead. Maybe he didn’t know much more than rumors. “We can catch up more once we get out of this mess. You stay here.” She smiled wide, taking a moment to clasp him gently on the shoulder. “You do a lot of damage from this vantage point, as the holes in my shield would attest.”

“And you do what you do best.”

Alice sucked her teeth and turned towards Jacob and Miranda. “You all got down a level. Let me know if you need back up.”

They didn’t seem particularly pleased that she wanted to stay with Garrus but didn’t push too hard. 

“It’s time to see what I can really do without that damned implant,” she rolled her head on her neck and shifted around the crates to find the best vantage point for the biotic onslaught she had planned.

The sabotaged mechs helped. Miranda and Jacob did too; they had taken far less damage than she had expected by the time the gun ship made its appearance. 

They were took late to stop it, though; by the time Jacob and Alice had made it back to the top floor, Garrus was in a pool of blue blood and Miranda had been thrown against a crate. She was, for the moment, unconscious. Alice barely glanced sideways at her as she threw herself beside Garrus.

She would not lose him. She would _ not _ lose him, not like she had lost Deccus or Declan or Charis or Kaidan. Not like she had lost herself, the Normandy, or her entire _ existence _. 

With a roar, the world turned to nodes of eezo and her mouth tasted of mint, metal, and blood as she focused on the gun ship. She had expended too much energy before and couldn’t tear it apart as she so desired. She could, however, bash it against the far wall and cause enough damage that Jacob could take shots as she scrambled to her feet. 

Her vision was blurry and her body weak as she drug herself and Garrus’ sniper rifle into the open so that she could find Tarak through the scope. Her first shot went wide.

Her second did not.

“Joker...get in here,” she looked at Garrus, dropping to her elbow hard against the floor. Miranda was coming to and Jacob looked torn as to who to go to, but Alice waved him off. She found in that moment that it didn’t seem to be entirely the implant that caused her headaches as she felt as though her skull was splitting in two. “...Now.”

She managed to army crawl her way back to Garrus, resting her forehead against his. “Garrus Vakarian, you better make it,” she hissed, fingers along the back of his neck. “Garrus,” her voice shifted to pleading as she slid in the puddle of his blood. 

His gasping breath had his forehead knocking against hers, his gray-blue eyes wide and looking into her green. “Al...Alice?” 

“It’s me, Garrus,” she breathed, not caring that tears were leaking out in front of the Cerberus operatives. “You’re going to be alright. That’s an _ order _.” 

There was no way for Joker to bring the Dunkirk to their position and there was no way Alice was going to be of any use carrying Garrus; she couldn’t hardly stand on her own. She told Miranda she didn’t care how they got out of there but they needed it to happen _ now _. The commander blacked out before they’d moved an inch.

When she came to again - Maker, did she hate blacking out - she was in the unfamiliar med bay of the Dunkirk. Groaning, she struggled to sit up a little and another familiar face was at her side quickly.

“This is a familiar sight,” Dr. Chakwas laughed a little and her voice sounded familiar across multiple memories. It grated on Alice but she tried not to let her discomfort be apparent. “Although you don’t have an implant to fry out of your head this time. How are you feeling?”

“Garrus?” Alice said, bypassing all pleasantries and questions from the doctor, turning away from the human to look around the room. She grimaced as she leaned back against the wall, eyes skipping over the beds around her. 

“He took a bad hit but the Cerberus medics and I were able to piece him back together. He should have full functionality.” Chakwas offered as she lifted a scanner to run over Alice. The redhead sat still, bringing an arm up that she didn’t remember injuring over her front in its sling. “You, though. You need to take it easy before you go back out there. You were _ riddled _ with holes.”

Alice looked at her in confusion, brows furrowed. Holes? She looked down at her body, more bandages than skin with the minimal amount of clothing needed to provide any sort of cover over her bits. “What are you talking about?”

“The gun ship,” Garrus’ voice followed shortly after the _ whoosh _ of the med bay doors. 

“How do you know?” she asked, tilting her head back to rest against the wall and look at the turian. The side of his face she could see looked no worse for wear. 

“They filled me in. You’ve been asleep _ forever _,” he scoffed, mandible that she could see fluttering a bit as his subharmonics trilled in amusement. “Told me all about your crazy heroics.”

“I didn’t-” she stopped, eyes widening as he moved in a way that allowed her to see his right side. “_ Garrus _.”

“Shit, is it that bad?” he asked in a too-charming voice, lifting a three-fingered hand to touch the space. “They wouldn’t give me a mirror.”

“Well…” Alice started, eyebrows lifted as she considered his face. His right side was more scarred than not and his mandible clearly had some kind of metal wiring or plate keeping it in place. “...some women find scars attractive. Most of ‘em are krogan, but hey. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

He let out a laugh that echoed in his subharmonics before he winced, lifting a hand gingerly to his scar. “Damn it, don’t make me laugh. It’s barely holding together with all the work they did as it is.”

“I don’t make a habit of lying to you, Garrus,” Alice grunted in pain as she shifted when he came up beside her, sitting gingerly on the bed beside hers. He shared a look with Chakwas over Alice’s head and the doctor exited the med bay without another word. 

“I’m worried about you, Shepard.” 

“Why? I’ll be fine in a day or two. We can go find the Salarian and I’ll be right as rain before we go anywhere too dangerous,” she spoke as if Omega hadn’t been what had caused all the damage to begin with or just very nearly killed both of them.

“I meant…” Garrus started, eyes scanning their surroundings even though he knew as well as she did they were monitored even without other people around. “...I’ve heard some pretty bad things about Cerberus over the last few years.”

“Yeah, they tried to kill us once or twice,” she added with a grimace; it was months ago for her but years for him. She watched him silently for a long moment, considering what he had seen while she had been being rebuilt. She wanted to talk to him - to have an honest, brutal conversation but couldn’t in those moments. She couldn’t manage it and she doubted he wanted to have that sort of talk where they were doubtlessly being recorded. She looked him dead in the eyes and hoped he understood her. “I’m glad you’re here, Garrus.” After working together for so long to defeat Saren and being in close quarters for almost all of that time, she wanted to believe he knew her well enough to know she understood _ exactly _ what he was talking about. “Just like old times,” she smiled wanly, closing her eyes as she rested against the wall.

Garrus chuckled lowly, “I don’t like what that means about how many more near-death experiences I’m sure I’ll be having.”

“Says the turian that was single-handedly trying to take out the entire gang force on Omega,” Alice snorted, cracking one eye open to look at him. His uninjured mandible fluttered in a smile and her mind pulled up the altercation with Saren in which she nearly tore his clean off. She wondered if he forgave her, wherever he was. Wondered if it mattered, with all the other blood on her hands. 

“We should get a drink on Omega,” he offered haltingly. “To _ catch up _,” he clarified and she immediately knew his meaning. "And to give you a few pointers. You missed that shot on Tarak?" He sucked his teeth, or the turian equivalent, and shook his head with a bemused expression. "For shame." Without Miranda or Jacob and preferably in civilian clothes. If the Illusive Man and Miranda hadn’t been lying about her unaltered state, she should be able to have a conversation alone with him without anyone being the wiser. If Aria’s scanners had been correct, there was at least one thing the Illusive Man had been truthful about and she could live with that for now. 

“A drink with my favorite turian sharpshooter?” Alice grinned wide, eyes closed again as she felt a level of exhaustion envelope her and wondered if Chakwas had dosed her without her realizing. “...yeah, let’s.”


	9. My Momma Wouldn't Say You Were a Nice Guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to CabritoSentado for your comment! Thanks to all those reading and leaving kudos! Just sort of plugging along here as things come together. FYI, my posting will be erratic but I still have the muse; have to do some travelling for family and work starts up again here in the next few weeks. <3

After another few hours of rest that left Alice feeling only marginally less half-dead, she and Garrus returned to Omega without their babysitters. Miranda did not at all approve of letting Shepard out of her sight, especially with one arm still in a sling and a turian with a mesh bandage covering one half of his face. 

Alice told her where she could shove her disapproval, in not so many words. This meant she and her turian companion were able to find a table for two in a busy but secluded-enough section of the Afterlife club. 

She hadn’t wanted to wear full armor; enough to keep herself safer than not but she and Garrus needed to blend in as patrons, not mercs. Cerberus hadn’t provided a lot of options but she cobbled together a simple outfit which included both pants and a leather jacket. The latter reminded her of Kaidan and it hurt. But it did its job otherwise. She wasn’t entirely sure where Garrus came up with the casual turian ensemble that housed patches of woven ballistic material but she was definitely jealous. 

“So are you going to tell me,” Garrus leaned over the table, close enough for Alice to see the individual lines of data reflect in the eye his visor sat over, “...what the hell happened?”

It wasn’t exactly where she wanted to start or even what she wanted to think about, she considered as she rubbed a hand fitfully across the part of her chest over which her necklace should have sat. “...I can tell you what I know. I can also tell you I have some files I might need help decrypting while EDI isn’t watching that could tell us more. All I know is…” 

Alice stopped, flashes of the memories caused by the Cerberus’ protocols implanted in her brain flying rapidly through her mind. Groaning, she took a deep pull on her drink. Long enough to require a refill. “...All I know is, I was dead. The Normandy blew up. I have a hunch about it but I have no proof and no real information. Anyway, we were attacked. I don’t remember enough to tell you what happened after we were hit. My brain is a mess right now, Vakarian,” she grimaced, tipping her newly acquired drink in thanks to the asari waitress. 

She waited until the blue alien left to continue speaking to the one across from her. She leaned closer and stared, hard, into his eyes. She could see how tired he was; how much the last two years had weighed on him. “I woke up in a Cerberus facility. The Illusive Man, the guy that runs the whole thing, wants me to take out the Reapers and there’s this other race, the Collectors?” Alice shook her head and scrubbed her hand over her face.

“Hey,” Garrus spoke, reaching a three-fingered hand out to cover Alice’s much smaller wrist. His hand, grayer than white with no caps on his talons any longer, was both welcome and a dramatic reminder of her loss. She looked from the lines he made over her hand to his alien features as he continued. “Breathe, Alice.” The expression he wore made his concern and curiosity obvious but there was more than that in the halting flicker of his unimpaired mandible and the lines around his eyes. “When I said it was good to see your face, it wasn’t just for show, you know.”

Relinquishing the titan grasp on her glass, Alice shifted her other hand to cover Garrus’. She imagined they looked, more or less, like a romantic dalliance. As few as she had, the public was bound to think she was prolific. If anyone, of course, deigned to pay attention. All the way out in the Terminus Sysem, though, she doubted a single soul gave a single fuck. 

Emotion crashed down on her and Alice felt her shoulders sag with the weight of it. Hot, angry tears pricked her eyes mercilessly and she had to look away from the figure in front of her lest she give in. “Fucking hell, Garrus,” swiping at her face she managed to keep some semblance of composure. She hadn’t realized the meaning of his touch until she fell into it and it unlocked every closeted emotion she had had to hide away since waking up inside Project Lazarus. There was something just so familiar about Garrus; even though she had Joker and Williams, even Chakwas on board it was not the same as having the turian across from her back at her side. 

She spilled to him the whole of it; not all of how she felt, but all of what had happened - at least all of what she knew. She divulged every memory that didn’t feel real but also she knew somehow belonged to her. She told him of the Collectors and seeing Tali, of her gut reaction to the Illusive Man and how he was trying to manipulate her. She didn’t hold back with Garrus, didn’t see much of a point; she had never pulled punches with him the first time around. 

If there was any doubt in his mind that this woman was Alice Shepard, former Alliance Commander and Spectre that had helped to defeat not only Saren but also a scouting Reaper ship deemed Sovereign, it disappeared when she said his name. Not because it _ sounded _ like her but because it _ felt _ like it. She had said his name in the solitude of the Mako when he came upon her, falling apart. He had seen her at the edge of her understanding, watching her pull herself back together. He had seen the dullness in her light eyes shift back to the spark of life he saw there now, dimmed as though it may have been in her worry. 

This was Alice, of that he was sure. Whether or not she knew that was a different story entirely. He didn’t think he had ever seen her so frayed, so fragile despite the airs she put on. Even walking with her to Deccus Abiso’s funeral, she was solemn but resolute. The woman sitting before him was broken and confused, coming apart at the seams and trying to spread her fingers to keep the stuffing from falling out. So he listened to every word she said, didn’t stop the drinks from coming, and tried to follow the thread of information.

“I don’t trust them. I am, at best, working _ adjacent _ to them. I’ll use their supplies because it’s all I’ve got. I’ll use their intel until I can reach out to the people that I once knew and get my own. I know it’s a lot to ask of you, Garrus, because of who it is and what they’re known for but I just…” she hesitated, long-since having relinquished his hand only to be reaching out to him again, “...I need to know you’ve got my back because I can’t do this alone. I can’t do it without you.”

Garrus let out a long, trilling sigh and his mandibles fluttered as he leaned back in his chair. Sliding his fingers together, he layered his hands over his waist and looked across the short distance to her. “Spirits,” was all he said for a moment. “Well. I don’t have much of a choice then, do I?” he asked with a joking tone lacing his words. “No Shepard without Vakarian. No universe without Shepard.” With a snort, he sat forward and picked up his drink again. “Don’t worry, Alice. I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me.” 

Relief washed over her and he could see it in the way her shoulders slid lower, released from their tense position. She had lost so much, in ways she didn’t even know, even before the two years she couldn’t remember. But knowing that she had this turian at her side meant she hadn’t lost everything, not yet anyway.

Looking worse for wear but feeling better than she had since finding herself back in reality, Alice walked beside Garrus as they made their way back to the Dunkirk. They both acknowledged another day’s rest and recon regarding the plague, which was being carried out largely by Miranda, would serve them better. From what they had heard, there were Blue Suns and looters. Some whisperings of vorcha but nothing had been solidified there yet. Alice didn’t intend to bring Garrus for fear of the plague but she still wasn’t at her best or even half of it. 

As they walked the hallways back to the docking station, they happened upon a man very blatantly beating on a batarian. It was hard not to get involved on Omega; Alice held a deep belief that doing the right thing was always preferable but she also didn’t have the firepower to take down Aria. Although, truth be told, Alice didn’t _ hate _ Aria and although the asari didn’t always do things the human agreed with, the latter appreciated some of the moves the former made. Besides, when she got to know you she was a pretty good conversationalist. They weren’t what Alice would consider _ friends _ but they were relatively friendly; that was attributed almost entirely to Deccus. Deccus had known Aria longer than Alice had been alive and the asari appreciated the former military turian’s knowledge and patronage on the station. His affection for the human had Aria tolerating her, at least. 

But around every corner on Omega, somebody was doing something that set Alice’s teeth on edge. Sometimes she stopped them. Sometimes she just, for a minute, watched. She tried to fight against the inherent distrust of batarians but sometimes she couldn’t manage to forget her time on Elysium. It made it a lot harder to care about the batarian that had just taken a punch to the gut.

Alice narrowed her eyes at the back of the head of the human in front of her and considered what she remembered from the dossiers she’d been given by the Illusive Man. Only three of them were human; one of them was housed on a prison station and whose release was still being organized, one of them would not be caught dead out in the open like this if Alice understood anything about the universe, and the third was a merc-for-hire with a shady past and a shadier choice in “alliances”.

Who was Alice to judge, though? 

Last she had heard, the merc was meant to be on Omega. Fortuitous, much like everything else the Illusive Man wanted to happen.

“I don’t suppose you’re Massani, are you?” 

“Who’s asking?” the accented voice asked her over an armored shoulder. The human knocked the batarian on the back of the head again to get him to hunch over before he turned to face them.

Alice and Zaeed both stumbled a little, in different ways and for different reasons. Alice’s eyebrows shot up at the scarring on his face surrounding a cybernetic eye. It wasn’t impossible to see but it definitely wasn’t very common, or at least it hadn’t been two years ago. It looked gnarly and caught her off guard. Garrus, for his part, didn’t seem too keen on Zaeed and his subharmonics growled but his eyes shifted from the batarian to the human.

Zaeed didn’t move much, but his face went slack when his eyes scanned the woman in front of him. He barely paid the turian much attention. 

The redhead rolled her eyes, “You’d only say that if you _ were _ him so yeah, thanks for answering my question. I’m Shepard. Commander Shepard, I guess. The Illusive Man said you’d made an arrangement.”

“Yeah, I’ve done my research,” he immediately seemed to get back into things and sent a kick into the gut of the batarian for good measure. Alice grimaced and shoved the hand on her good arm into a pocket. “Looks like we have a galaxy to save.”

Alice didn’t know what it was about him but something set her on edge and it was clear from Garrus’ response that he felt similarly. When the turian started, “Commander…” Alice didn’t correct him, “...Perhaps we should let Massani finish with his bounty.”

She knew that Garrus wanted to speak to her; he knew her well enough to know that everything he said would otherwise just piss her off. Taking that into consideration, Alice nodded. “You’re right. We’re in docking bay Alpha 17. We’ll see you when you’re finished. Please don’t waste our time.”

Alice and Garrus turned away as Zaeed continued his ‘work’ with the batarian. Alice winced at a particularly rough-sounding hit but knew that only Garrus would be the wiser. 

The two were well out of the earshot of Zaeed before the turian spoke. “I don’t like him, Alice.”

“You didn’t like me when we first met either,” she countered, although she felt the same way. Especially his response to her; it made her skin itch. It wasn’t like he was leering at her or even that his response was particularly strange. There was just something there that she didn’t understand and she was already on high alert from everything with...well, from _ everything _.

“_ You _ don’t like him either,” Garrus accused, leaning his alien head down to look her in the eyes.

“It doesn’t matter, not yet.” With a sigh she rubbed her injured shoulder, stopping short of the Dunkirk in an attempt to avoid facing the Cerberus spy tech she knew awaited them. “The Illusive Man wants him for whatever reason and I have to play nice, at least sometimes, to keep him off my back. He’s _ talented _, at least. We’ll find out whether or not we can trust him before too long.”

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you,” Zaeed’s voice called from close enough that Alice knew instinctively he had heard their conversation, “...it’s rude to talk about someone behind their back?”

“No,” she replied simply, “And strictly speaking, you were behind _ ours _.”

An odd look pulled at the edges of his already down-turned lips at her quick reply but it went away as quickly as it came. “Yeah, that’s a problem. I shouldn’t have been able to come up behind you like that. And what are you doing out of armor? You’re going to get yourself killed, kid.”

The word ‘kid’ left Alice rankled. Who did this motherfucker think he was?

“Let’s get something straight, Massani,” Alice turned completely to face him and could feel Garrus at her back. She straightened her back; she was still several inches shorter than the six foot mercenary but with the vague blue glow and much taller turian backing her she was fairly intimidating. “I am your commander on this ship. Commander or Shepard are what you may call me. Someday maybe Alice, if we become friends.” She hesitated, blue glow fading. “You may be a hired merc and although I don’t understand why you’re here, it doesn’t change that you are. And that means you’re my man and it means you’re going to have my back. And everyone else’s on this ship. If, at any point, that becomes anything other than true I will ask you to leave. If you don’t...well, I can tell you from experience that getting spaced sucks.” 

The older human whistled lowly, glancing briefly behind Alice to Garrus. “She always this feisty?”

“Fucking try me, Massani,” Alice let out a bark of a laugh before she clapped a hand on his bare, tattooed elbow. “I might have a job for you tomorrow. You ready?”

“Yeah, Shepard. Hey, did the Illusive Man let you in on the side mission I’ve got planned? I’ve been hunting down a...bounty, just looking to find him before I move in.”

Alice shook her head and the man that looked too hard and the color of her hair filled her in on information regarding Vido Santiago. The name wasn’t familiar but she wouldn’t soon forget it. 


	10. But You Don't Know the Half of the Shit That You Put Me Through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update! A friend and I have been doing writing sprints and this happened. I'm also VERY slowly editing through the series so far with the assistance of Jay as a beta (not that he'll ever read this to see the shout-out, but whatverrr.) 
> 
> Thanks to all the readers and kudos-ers, thank you for your comments when you leave them! I really like to know how you're taking this, considering there's some major changes. Those will come out in the next few chapters more; largely with the inclusion of Ashley and as I'm able to bring the other companions in. I feel like this part of the story is going to feel a bit like game-rehashing as I develop everybody for ya'll. 
> 
> Enjoy!

What was her name? The redhead with the bed head? Yeoman something. Cabinets? Chaucer?

Alice shook her head a little; she was atrocious with names. You’d think a redhead would stick with her out of solidarity but, alas.

“Yeoman,” she spoke, bypassing the name altogether as she approached. “How are you doing?”

“I am well, thank you Commander.” Alice thought the woman blushed and chose to ignore it. 

“Good...I need you to do me a favor. There’s a turian, by the name of Zersa Acatis. I need you to find her contact information for me. Last I knew she had a restaurant in Illyria, on Elysium.”

“Aye, aye,” the woman nodded. “Commander, you have a message from Captain Anderson. You can access it at your personal terminal.”

“Thanks,” Alice replied, frustrated that she still had confirmed the other woman’s name but comfortable with the rest of the conversation. She toyed with the idea of asking her to forward the messages to her Omni-Tool but worried what kind of access that would give Cerberus and thought better of it. That said, she felt like she might want to replace the Omni-Tool entirely for fear that they already had more access than she would’ve preferred. Which was any.

She was equal parts surprised and relieved that Anderson had contacted her; if he knew she was alive, that meant more people did - which meant this might be easier than she thought. However, if he knew to contact her on Cerberus channels then he no doubt associated her with them. While unfortunately accurate, it was still problematic. She  _ should _ respond to Anderson, she thought as she made her way through the ship.

She should but what she wanted to do was crawl into bed and never leave it again. She kind of enjoyed the idea of not existing for a little while longer. If she didn’t respond, maybe he would think she really was dead? Could Cerberus give her a new face? Could she let go of everything she had ever known - barring those aboard the ship - and just die fighting the Reapers again? Hopefully she’d get to stay dead the next time.

Grimacing, Alice scrubbed her hand over her face as the doors to her quarters opened with a metallic  _ whoosh _ . Her personal terminal was in her quarters; at least she had that much privacy, such as it was. EDI  _ said _ it didn’t have access but that didn’t mean it was telling the truth. And even if it was, there was no telling what additional bullshit the Illusive Man had managed to line the communication hub with.

There were altogether too many things that made Alice itch but feeling caged was definitely at the top of the list - this connection with Cerberus, however tenuous, felt like a leaden collar around her neck while trying to swim across the English Channel. 

In a word, uncomfortable.

Throwing herself into her desk chair, Alice ran through the messages that waited for her. There were dossiers on the crew members, those that the Illusive Man still intended for her to recruit, more details from Massani about Vido. A message, in code, from the turian. It only asked if she wanted to meet to spar; Alice wondered why the code but decided he would tell her eventually. Perhaps it was only to establish if she would decipher it? And if yes, if whomever was surely reading through Alice’s communications would also? 

It took her only a few minutes but she thought that was because of their shared history and her knowledge of turian culture. It made her wonder how long a computer would take to decode it. 

“EDI,” Alice spoke into her closed, quiet room.

“Yes, Commander?” the feminine voice replied. 

“Do you have access to my personal terminal?”

“As I said the last time you asked, Commander, I do not. I only control the the electronic defense systems. I have behavioral blocks to keep me from accessing the majority of the Dunkirk’s systems.”

“Can I give you an override?”

If an AI could sound surprised, it might have. “Acknowledging your misgivings about my presence and Cerberus in general, I do not understand why you would choose to do such a thing.”

It seemed like a strange sentiment for an AI to share. It was a yes or no question but this...computer program was talking about Alice’s feelings and not understanding her motivations. Alice narrowed her eyes at the spherical blue hologram that appeared and moved as the AI’s voice broke the silence in her room. 

“But yes, Commander. It would be possible for you to give me access, if you so choose. I would like to know why.”

“...EDI, if I ask you a question will you lie to me?”

“I do not have the ability to deceive,” it said although Alice didn’t entirely believe that to be true. “But I do not believe it would be in my best interest to do so, even if I were capable.”

“Why’s that?” 

“You are the commander of the ship.”

“And you’re part of my crew,” Alice responded, setting her elbow on her desk and her chin on the heel of her hand. It was a strange concept, having an AI as an acknowledged part of her crew. She realized how crazy she both felt and probably would sound to at least two thirds of the human population. The redhead laughed a little, shaking her head as she sat back in her chair and set it to spin gently. “Don’t tell Joker I said that. I think he’d mutiny.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Alice snorted; the response reminded her of something Garrus might’ve said when they first met. “Anyway...Do you know anything about what Cerberus did to me?”

“Give me a moment, if you please.”

Alice resumed scrolling through her messages and pulled up Captain Anderson’s to reply when EDI’s blue self reappeared. 

“It appears that most files regarding Project Lazarus are restricted. You may need to discuss this subject with Miranda or the Illusive Man, although I cannot imagine he will give you the information you are interested in.”

“You sound like you want me to know.”

“You are my commander,” EDI replied, “it is important that you are sufficiently prepared to lead. If you are concerned with these procedures, your mind may be preoccupied at inopportune moments.”

“Ouch,” Alice sucked in breath through her teeth, rubbing the heel of her hand across her breastbone as if she’d been attacked. “You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

“I told you, Commander. I am not capable of deceit.”

She made a face. “Could you soften the blow a bit?”

“I believe you would prefer me to respond as such. With open honesty. Is it not one of the things that you appreciate in Garrus Vakarian?”

“You’ve got me there. Okay...well, thanks for trying. I’m going to send this reply off. Let Ashley and Massani know that I’ll need them for our mission back on Omega. We’ve got to go into the quarantine zone. I’d like to see what Massani is made of.”

“Would you like me to pass on that message?”

Alice’s immediate response was to vehemently decline the offer but she barked out a laugh. “I don’t suppose it matters much. But all that either of them really needs to know is that I would like to be planetside at…” she slid her eyes to the clock beside her, reading 04:37, “...o-five hundred.”

“Aye, aye Commander.”

The blue orb disappeared and Alice rolled her head on her neck as she set her fingers to responding.

_ Dear Captain, _

Her cursor blinked as she stared at the space.

_ It is me. I’m alive. I think so, anyway. There’s a lot… _

Alice deleted everything but the greeting. 

_ Thank you for the welcome back. I understand your concerns. I am, as yet, uncertain when I will next be in Citadel space let alone on the Citadel itself. _

She stopped and deleted her last line.

_ There are a few things I have to take care of here in the Terminus Systems before we can return to the Citadel. I will send another message when we are preparing to leave. I look forward to speaking with you. _

It felt so detached. So...sterile. It wasn’t like her but this was a Cerberus channel and she  _ definitely _ didn’t trust the Illusive Man, even if she was starting to like EDI. 

After a few more minutes of rearranging her lines and adding a few more, the message she sent off read: 

_ Dear Captain: _

_ I hope this message finds you well. Yours found me, as you had guessed, alive. I cannot speak exactly to what happened but I will gladly fill you in on what I know when we next meet.  _

_ I understand why the Council requests my presence and I will let you know when we are headed to Citadel space. As of yet, there are a few things that I need to take care of here in the Terminus Systems before I can divert my attention.  _

_ I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak with you prior to meeting with the Council.  _

_ Speaking of which, how’s Udina’s jaw? _

_ Yours Respectfully, _

_ A. Shepard _

She was ready and waiting with five minutes to spare; Massani and Ashley joined her, the latter preceded the former. Alice appreciated that the ex-Alliance still found ways to incorporate her favorite color into her armor. This set had a stark pink racing stripe. Not very subtle, but that wasn’t really Ashley’s style. 

Massani looked every bit a mercenary and Alice didn’t  _ love _ that but he was there on a trial basis despite what the Illusive Man said. She wouldn’t work with someone she didn’t trust, especially when she had to deal with Miranda already. She could at least kick this guy out if he caused problems. She still had to figure out how to deal with the Cerberus operative but that was a headache for a different day. 

As they made ready to disembark, a familiar outline in blue approached. Garrus was dressed for the operation in a stealth suit; heavy enough to withstand more fire than Alice hoped they would find. EDI had given her enough intel to dash those so it was no surprise Garrus knew to dress appropriately. 

“Room for one more, Shepard?” 

“It’s a bad idea, Garrus,” she replied, cocking her head in the direction of the ship’s door. “The plague kills turians. I just managed to scrape you out of there, I don’t intend to put you back.”

She felt the intensity of his gaze on the lines of her face, reading far more than she had put into plain words. Huffing, she turned away from him. “It’s your funeral, Vakarian. Come if you like but don’t come crying to me when you’re hacking up a lung.”

Alice made light of the weight on her chest at the thought of losing another turian to a disease she couldn’t do anything about. She could kill an intruder. She could take down an assailant. She wasn’t a Makerdamn scientist, though. What good was she in the face of an illness?

Despite her misgivings, Garrus did join them. Massani seemed to approve of his gumption and her sardonic approval. Ashley seemed about as enthused about the alien’s presence as the old Ashley would’ve been. 

The two human women had caught up some during their traversing of the system and Alice’s recovery prior to their  _ hopefully _ final foray to Omega; Alice was pleased to know that the brunette’s sisters were all well and that her time with Cerberus had been positive. Distancing herself from the Alliance had initially caused some consternation with her family, predominately her father’s side as they had such a history with the human military. Ashley insisted that the Alliance didn’t have humanity’s best interests at heart any longer; they could no longer see the bigger picture.

Alice decided to keep an eye on the other human; with her propensity for human-centrism, the justification for leaving the Alliance only proved to set her more on edge than she already had been. She was  _ glad _ to have Williams on the Dunkirk. They had not always seen eye to eye but she knew, after that last altercation in the face of pirates, the soldier had her back. It was just all of the other backs that Alice had to worry about. And the Illusive Man; Alice already knew that EDI was reporting back to him, assumed that Miranda was, bet that Jacob might be, and didn’t need  _ another _ spy on her team. Pulling Ashley into this particular mission was not by accident.

The smell nearly knocked her back out of the zone after only a few steps. The airlocks on the doors leading out of it were something special if there had been absolutely no indicated. She glanced at Garrus; his sense of smell was superior to anyone else’s on their current ground squad. She was surprised when she  _ didn’t _ see tears in his eyes.

“You never quite get used to the smell of burning bodies,” Alice half-gagged as they took tentative steps deeper into the plague zone. 

“It’s to stop the spread,” Zaeed offered, lifting a scarf-like piece of fabric from the front of his armor to drape it over his nose.

“If it’s airborne, how does it help?” Alice replied as they picked their way along. “I guess if the flame kills it? Or does it just  _ seem _ like a good idea?” Making a face, she waved her hand in the air to dismiss the sentiment. “I don’t care. Let’s get out of here as fast as possible. This smell is never going to leave my nose.” 

The Commander insisted that Garrus keep his helmet on but that didn’t last long, despite her expression of concern heavily laden with disapproval. 

“If you die out here because you took that stupid helmet off,” Alice started as they skirted around a group of Blue Suns to get a better vantage point, “...I swear I’ll leave you here.”

“I doubt that,” Ashley snorted, hefting her rifle to her shoulder as Garrus set up his sniper. Zaeed found his own weapon - he was favoring a heavier gun at the moment. Alice started their assault off with a show of biotics. They made quick work of the mercenaries. 

“You’re right,” Alice finalized, turning to Ashley as they continued. EDI had given them a general idea of where they were going but everything looked the same. “Although he  _ is _ heavy.”

Garrus made a clicking sound with his tongue, as though he was offended by the comment. The group fell into slightly uneasy silence, although that was perhaps only Alice’s perception of it. 

She struggled getting used to new people, even if she knew Williams and could bet Garrus would put Zaeed down before he could run if he turned on her. She didn’t want to assume the worst but it was so hard while she waited for their true colors to reveal themselves. She  _ wanted _ to trust Ashely and decided to make a more concentrated effort to do so. This was still the same Ashley that liked the color pink, teased her younger sisters, and enjoyed poetry. 

They came upon a sick Batarian; Zaeed offered to shoot him the second he opened his mouth.

Alice felt a shiver of anger and hatred curl down her spine as she surveyed the victim of the plague. The taste of bile in her throat accompanied it and she bent at the knees, setting a pack of medigel at the Batarian’s feet. “I don’t care what you think of me,” she replied after he ended his diatribe about how humans were the cause of the plague. “I know  _ I _ didn’t create this plague. Sounds to me like the Vorcha have just as much, if not more, to gain from the situation than humans do.”

He watched her with all eyes narrowed in suspicion, reaching out to grab the medigel. He inspected it closely before ingesting it. “Why...would you help me?”

“I want to know the same thing,” Zaeed echoed.

Alice shot a frustrated expression over her shoulder at the much-older human before she responded to the infected being in front of them. “Because you haven’t given me a reason not to. It won’t cure the plague but it might help you survive long enough to see the cure.” Alice extended her arm out to help him stand, slowly and shakily, against the wall. “Can you tell us where to find Mordin Solus?” 

He did tell them where to find the Salarian and so the squad left him, coughing but less-so and slightly less suspicious at least of one redheaded human in particular, to continue on their way.

“You know…” Alice started quietly as they took a set of stairs down to another level, a sort of valley between alleys, “...I get why people think the Vorcha  _ couldn’t _ do it, but the more I think about it the more that it makes sense that they  _ did _ . Especially if there’s someone else behind it.”

“Like who? Who would enlist the Vorcha to do anything but clean up their kills?” 

Alice had to remind herself that she was no longer Alliance and Zaeed was a hired hand, not a soldier. His questioning rankled her but she didn’t have time to address it. Or the energy at the moment. 

“I don’t fucking know,” Alice shrugged. “But it doesn’t make sense that a human group would infect everyone  _ but _ the Vorcha.”

“It doesn’t make sense that the Vorcha wouldn’t infect humans,” Garrus replied, trying to cover a cough. Alice winced at the sound, eyes searching out his. He shook his head as if to suggest it wasn’t a big deal but she didn’t believe the silent exchange any more than she would verbal protestations. 

“It does, though,” she sucked her teeth as they pressed back against a wall. A group of Vorcha stood in their path, but not for long. Shaking her head as they picked their way over the dead, she resumed her earlier train of thought. “Humans have a fairly tenuous place in the galaxy anyway, right? Cerberus is in the corner shouting about abductions, the Alliance is doing fuck-all about it. Why not create a virus that makes it  _ look _ like humans did it? No one would assume the Vorcha could do it, like Massani said. It’s a perfect scapegoat.”

“But you’re betting on a lot of subterfuge from these worthless vermin,” the hired gun kicked a dead Vorcha’s chin as they passed over it. 

Finally, the redhead shrugged and conceded the point. “I’m a soldier, not a scientist,” she huffed before motioning for everyone to get back. “Speaking of, there’s a whole lot of Blood Pack up ahead. I think we’re getting close. Let’s take them out and meet this Salarian.”


	11. Turns Out Everywhere You Go You Take Yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Bhell for all the kind words and comments! Thank you to everyone that takes the time to read, leave kudos, or comment. I started up working again and we moved house sooooooo it's been a busy few weeks (like month and a half, but who's counting?). Anyway, I have the rest of the story -planned- to some degree and the next chapter started sooo, maybe we'll see more consistent progress if I can find the time to write? Maybe? 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!

The Commander suppressed the urge to shoot a “I told you so” at her companions as they were approached by the Vorcha, having gotten the cure from the Salarian. Something Mordin had said made her feel like she hadn’t been so off the mark with her earlier musings on what was going on behind the plague but this alien in front of her was all but confirming it for her. 

The fact that she had been right didn’t matter much in the face of the Vorcha and the Blood Pack that were gunning for them. She could gloat _ after _ they turned the systems back on and spread the cure. What she wanted to know was why the Collectors wanted the Plague. Was it a test run? Did they intend to demolish the galaxy, leaving humans for easy picking? If that was the case, why not just create a neurotoxin that could be released like the plague if they felt like the swarms were ineffective?

Thinking about the reasoning behind mass murder made her head hurt almost more than her implant used to. Taking a shot to the shoulder, even with armor and a shield up, shook her from her reverie and she refocused on the task at hand. 

The Salarian scientist, one of the few that Alice had met but was already well above the others in her regard, injected Garrus before they left to retrieve his apprentice. 

“Are you _ certain _?” Alice asked Garrus after the cure had taken affect, or at least after he said it had. 

He coughed out a ‘yes’, which didn’t convince her but she couldn’t do much about it. Alice still wasn’t thrilled about bringing him _ deeper _into the mess but she would have been lying if she said she wasn’t glad for his company. As long as the cure took and kept him alive, she wouldn’t complain.

It wasn’t _ easy _ going but it went, anyway. They had one fan left before they could return to Mordin and his second-in-command that they’d managed to talk out of batarian captivity. The batarians that had been holding him hadn’t seemed particularly intent on keeping him, aside from the idea of some sort of retribution for the plague that he had nothing to do with. 

People really pissed her off sometimes.

More time passed that she would like to admit and she had more than a few new bruises; she was glad that Garrus had forced himself on their party despite his cough. There was more than one instance where she could’ve been in a pretty bad position if he hadn’t taken a shot first. As they made their way back to collect Mordin or at least his answer, the redhead looked up at the turian.

“How do you feel, Garrus?”

“Better,” he replied wanly. Alice side-eyed him. 

Turning her attention to the other two in the ground party, she checked with Williams. “All good?” 

The ex-Alliance, still-soldier seemed mildly surprised by the question but nodded a little. “Aye, aye. Thanks to Massani, for getting that Vorcha literally off of my back.”

It was true; the merc-for-hire was surprisingly spry for his apparent age and more than helpful enough. Alice didn’t like to admit when the Illusive Man had a point but she supposed he did.

“And you?” she finally turned to the oldest of the group and resisted the urge to call him ‘Old Man’. They didn’t have that kind of relationship and, as she looked over him while they continued their trek, wasn’t sure if they ever would. He reminded her in some ways of Wrex but not enough of the good ways.

“I’m not falling down or too broken if that’s what you’re asking,” he grunted, the bright green color of his one natural eye eerily familiar and his other eye just eerie. 

“Just checking in,” the redhead shook her head slightly. “You better get used to it and get that chip off your shoulder, Massani.”

She continued walking - Ashley kept pace - while Garrus made a comment she didn’t bother trying to hear in the general direction of Zaeed. Before too long, both males caught up with them and they returned to the clinic in short order.

* * *

With Mordin on the ship, Alice made the decision to return to the Citadel. She was still waiting to hear from Chambers about information on Zersa and Anderson and seemed pretty insistent. She let him know they were on their way and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, would reach them within an hour. He let her know that he and the Council would be waiting and where to find them.

There wasn’t a copious amount of time to spend travelling but enough time to leave Alice room to think. And, instead of thinking, she decided to check on Zaeed. She had said they’d go to Zoyra and she intended to make good on her word - when he found out Vido was there, they’d drop what they were doing and take off unless it was impossible to do so. After that, they still had a small handful of recruits to track down. Alice wondered absently why it wasn’t ever the recruits that came to _ her _ but decided complaining wouldn’t get her anywhere. At least not anywhere she wanted to be any more than where she already was. 

Massani got under her skin, Mordin had essentially recreated the genophage and had liked Kirrahe far more than the human could fathom, and if she knew anything about the Council she _ wouldn’t _ like the conversation she was due to have in an hour’s time.

With a grunt, Alice shoved away from the desk in her cabin and began to pace. She hated the space. There was too much extravagance but nothing meant anything. It was the Illusive Man reminding her he owned her; the skylight that kept the stars above her bed, the aquarium with no fish, the ship display of every human vessel that had been destroyed by _ her _ call. It was his way to make sure she was aware of just how much control he had over her life, just how much he knew, and just how much he disapproved. 

The skylight was the worst of it, probably. Alice had always loved the stars, as long as she could remember; still did, when she had full control of faculties. Waking up disoriented beneath them sent her heart racing and her hand to her throat as she gasped for air; it was too fresh. She had died what felt like _ days _ ago. Two days, at that. She had had no time to mourn her lost years, her lost memories, her lost friendships or her lost _ life _ and here this son of a bitch was just _ taunting _ her. 

As if sleeping wasn’t hard enough with the _ dreams _ , this only made it more difficult for her to even want to consider it. She knew that she needed to; she knew, too, that going to the Citadel and _ not _ having the apartment she had shared with Deccus to return to was going to be made inexplicably harder with as little sleep as she had been getting. 

Pacing was doing her any good either so, after changing into an appropriate “civilian” outfit - the Cerberus crew outfit with the removal of the shoulder patches, painstakingly hacked at with a stolen scalpel from Chakwas - Alice took time to scroll through the vid files she had been able to recover from the Cerberus base. 

Much of it was buried in encryption far beyond her abilities; the dossier of Kasumi Goto suggested that she could be of service, although Alice had long-since sent it to Garrus with the request for his expertise. She hadn’t met Kasumi and didn’t know how that would work out either way.

Part of her wanted to ask EDI. Either she or Miranda would, most likely, be the best suited to decrypt it without potentially corrupting the files but Alice didn’t trust either of them. She was growing to enjoy EDI, despite knowing that the AI’s purpose was to report back to the Illusive Man. Miranda was upfront about her allegiances and Alice thought, maybe, there was a crack in the veneer after their last conversation - but still not enough to trust them with this. 

She needed to know what they had done to her and why her memories were so mixed up. She was missing scars that could help ground her in reality, she was missing pieces of herself. If she was Alice Shepard, why didn’t she have the scar above her navel and to the left from the Skyllian Blitz? Where was her “metal” of honor? Where was the braided rope around her ankle? The four prick scars on her elbow from her first meeting with Deccus?

If she was Ali, how did she know how to move things with her mind? What could explain those dots that the world devolved into when she tasted metal and mint?

If she was Alicia, why did Garrus - who’s name should have been Charis - have a growl under his speech? Why did he feel so far away? Why did he look like something out of a sci-fi vid?

If she was Allison, where was the tall, dark, and handsome Canadian? Why would he ever leave her, with the words he had whispered in her ear? How could he forget her, no matter how long or how far?

If she was real, why did her chest always feel so hollow? 

Alice could’ve easily put her fist through the fish tank as she let out a roar in the relative solitude of her quarters. Not silence, because there was a constant string of unnecessary music that she couldn’t turn off because _ of course _ she couldn’t. 

Instead, she chose the model ship case. She spun to find herself standing between her bed and the display case, throwing out her fist. A biotic pulse would’ve been easier but not nearly as satisfying. She let her fists fly, feeling the searing pain as shards sliced her knuckles. It was a thousand paper cuts from her knuckles to her elbows and she kept going until every ship, every shard was in pieces on the floor. 

She was quite literally dripping blood, shoulders heaving as she took in great gulps of breath. The _ whoosh _ of her cabin door preceded the appearance of the tallest turian she had ever seen. 

“_ Shepard _?” He seemed distressed, mandibles flared widely as he took long-legged strides over to her. “EDI told me you-..you’re bleeding.”

Alice tilted her head back as he approached, alien hands holding gently beneath her forearms as rivulets of blood trickled along her impossibly pale skin. She felt dazed, blinking as she glanced from their different hands to the blue visor that obscured his eyes from hers. He ticked his head to the side and the visor disappeared. Her eyes found his and she saw something there she couldn’t remember seeing much of before their reunion.

Fear. 

EDI’s voice clicked into the room. “It would be best to take the Commander to Dr. Chakwas prior to landing on the Citadel.” 

“I’m not walking her through the ship like this,” Garrus retorted. “Get Chakwas up here.”

“Yes, Archangel.”

Shepard made a face at him that bespoke how ridiculous she thought it was that EDI used his Omega nickname. For his part, he snorted as though he wasn’t holding her bloodied arms.

“What...what happened?” he asked, gingerly stepping them around the mess that she had left to settle her on the edge of her bed. It was the wrong shape. She hated it.

“I broke the glass and it cut me,” she replied matter-of-factly, eyes feeling dry as she remained unintentionally wide. She was looking at the destruction she had wrought but not seeing any of it. She was seeing the dead floating outside of the Citadel in the wreckage of all the ships she had sent to be destroyed. She was seeing the Salarians engulfed in flames on Virmire. She was seeing Deccus’ body burning in the crematorium. She was seeing the Protheans screaming and running from the Beacon’s visions. She was seeing her crewmembers running scared as the ship tore apart. She was seeing her XO and his second on the hard metal floor of the Normandy. She was seeing her home, the child Deccus gave her torn apart, floating away from her as she slowly suffocated above Alchera.

She was seeing Declan’s dead body, riddled with bullet holes on the floor of their marital bed. She was seeing the troops in heavy artillery beating down their door.

She was seeing Charis’ broken body on the streets of Manhattan beneath her, a helicopter’s whirring blades a whisper compared to the roar of her heart and the scream in her throat. 

She was seeing Kaidan’s bloated, drowned body floating off a dock at the Burrard Inlet. She watched as the boat containing his murderers made waves, rocking his corpse in the wake. 

“Alice,” Garrus hissed, hands on her shoulders now as he shook her slightly. His small blue eyes narrowed, the pinprick of his pupils becoming more like slits as the lids settled around them. “Spirits,” he said as a thick, long-taloned finger brushed against her cheek. The human hadn’t realized she’d been crying. The sort of silent tears that spill despite your best efforts or even without your knowledge entirely.

“Commander, we’re approaching the Citadel.”

“Bring us in, Joker,” Alice spoke without her voice cracking and wiped at her cheeks with bloodied hands. Chakwas entered just then with enough medigel to revive the entire asari fleet.

In no time at all, between the shower attached to her cabin and the marvel of modern medicine, Alice looked as though nothing had happened. Chakwas offered to clean up the mess the ex-Alliance, ex-Spectre, ex-orphan, ex-turian lover, ex-everything had made while they took care of business. 

Garrus and Alice exited her cabin to make for the elevator, the former curving his much-larger hand around the latter's bicep. He looked down at her with his eagle eyed-gaze and she felt seen in a way she hadn’t in a long time, maybe ever. 

“Alice,” was the sound that came from him but he said so much more. 

With a wan smile, she didn’t pull her arm from his grip as they settled into the elevator. “I don’t suppose you have a place to stay on the Citadel, do you? I imagine they sold mine off some time ago.”

His mandibles flickered as his eyes narrowed; she wondered if he still knew her as well as he used to. “I’m sure I can come up with something,” he began before cracking, “although I’m not sure exactly what on a vigilante’s salary.”

“Send the bill to the Illusive Man,” she shrugged, “I’m his pet project. He’ll want me well-kept.”

He must have been able to pick up on the contempt lacing her words because the hand that had been around her bicep brushed her shoulder as the elevator door opened, leaving them staring at the giant galaxy map that took up much of the CIC. 

“Then I’ll make sure to find a suitably expensive hotel,” he trilled in response, following her as she made her way towards the docking port. 

“EDI, please let the crew know we’ll be taking the rest of the day here and to be ready to sail at 0800 tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye, Commander. Would you like me to send anyone along with you and Archangel?”

Alice suppressed a snort; she was going to have to talk with EDI because she already had a hard time taking her seriously.

“No, EDI, thank you. Get some...rest, or...something,” the redhead shrugged and felt the grit of unspent tears in her eyes. Her arms still ached, even though the medigel had patched her up. Her knuckles were raw but in the newly-healed way and her heart remained shattered in her chest.

“Alice, I know you…” the turian started, faltering, “I...Spirits, can we talk?”

Although the human biotic would have likely dismissed the suggestion, she didn’t get the chance; a hacked advertisement began calling her name and she had to stuff down her feelings like she had every day before for as long as she could remember. 

First Kasumi, then Bailey, then Avina. Actively trying not to think about what had become of the apartment she had once shared with a being that, in her mind, was only months dead when in reality it had been _ years _ . Running errands for others was one of her least favorite things but when the quarian girl was accused of theft and she was offered a discount to say a few trite words (Cerberus’ didn’t have _ unlimited _ resources and she really wanted to stock that aquarium) , Alice made do. She had to kill time until the meeting anyway, which meant that she discovered whether the Presidium lakes had fish (they didn’t) and whether the turian bartender would give her a second look (he did). 

By the time she reached Councilor Udina’s office, to thankfully find the man nowhere to be seen, she was a little less frayed around the edges in an obvious way. She still hadn’t followed up with Garrus and didn’t intend to, although she had entirely talked herself into sleeping arrangements in close vicinity to the turian. She grimaced a little when she realized that meant she would probably have to tell him _ something _ although the Garrus she knew certainly wouldn’t _ push _ her.

It went about as well as she had anticipated; maybe a little better, be it because they did reinstate her Spectre status (even if in name only) or because Udina wasn’t there. The overall lack of belief, questioning her sanity, and refusal to acknowledge that the Reapers really were a threat could’ve been better though.

“Do you think they don’t want to accept it because it’s too big to deal with?” Alice asked Anderson as they looked out over the Presidium, even as Keepers milled about. She watched them closely for a moment, mind catching on something she thought she had heard once. What _ were _ they? Why were they there? Everyone had a motivation. Sure, she had spoken to Vigil on Ilos and knew where they came from or at least sort of. Were they still, one some level, waiting for the Reaper’s call? What if the Reapers could figure out how to fix what the Protheans had broken?

What if’s would drive Alice crazy and so she focused on the now-Admiral. “I don’t know, Shepard, but I know I will do everything I convince them and everyone else. I know you’re right. I know the Reapers are the real threat. We need them to know it too.”

“Knowing those three, it’ll take the whole of the Reaper fleet coming down on their heads to get them to see it. I mean, just one didn’t work,” she replied with a roll of her eyes and glanced at Garrus. “Enough about things we can’t do anything about. How have you been?”

As Anderson filled her in, she wondered if she had made the right choice by backing Udina. The man knew politics, sure, but she _ hated _ him. Even if Anderson was tied to the Citadel as the Councilor’s Advisor, he still had more freedom than he would’ve if she’d chosen the Alliance man. When Anderson had finished, the redhead had only one more question.

“Kaidan?”

The older man, with whom she had more memories than she could fit into the space between them, smiled wanly at her and put a warm hand on her shoulder. “Staff Commander Alenko is on a top-secret mission. If I’m able to, I’ll get word to him that you asked.”

It wasn’t the answer that she wanted but it was better than some alternatives. With a curt nod, Alice turned them back towards the door to see herself out. Not quickly enough, and what was a fairly neutral end to a pretty dramatic day turned into a much worse one following the appearance of the Councilor that somehow managed to be the worst of the four options. He came and went, leaving only the sour taste of his presence and more frustration in his wake.

“He did it,” Alice spoke with feigned reverence.

“What’s that?” Garrus asked from his place at her side.

“Managed to become an even _ bigger _ ass.”

Despite himself, the Admiral laughed. “You’re right. He’s even worse now that he’s got a seat on the Council. Better him than me though. But that isn’t your problem right now. You need to focus on stopping the Collectors before we lose any more colonies. And finding out what they’re up to.”

“Probably easier than finding the stick,” she replied with a snort.

“What stick?”

“The one Udina has shoved up his ass,” she finalized, feeling more like her old self in the presence of her old commander despite the splintering in her chest. “I’ll let you know if I find anything. It was...it was good to see you, Admiral.”

“You too, Shepard. Despite what it means for now, I’m glad someone brought you back.”

Alice offered him a smile, not quite prepared to say ‘me too’.

  
  



	12. Dream a Little Dream of Me, Make Me into Something Sweet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love writing these dream/memory/alternative existence chapters. They're so random, fun, and out of the normal mode of the story. This was meant to be a sort of film noir (hence the references to Notorious) meets...that season of Criminal Minds where what's her face references having gone under cover for the Irish mob guy meets...uhh, I don't know. 
> 
> Anyway! Thanks to Bhell for commenting, the new kudos, and all those that stop by to read! I'm hoping I can get another one up this weekend but I'm not 100% certain.

Alicia's heart ached as her eyes followed the long lines of Charis’ body in the dying sunlight. He was taller than anyone else she’d met in person before; it was immeasurably easy to pick him out in a crowd. It wouldn’t have been too difficult even if he was closer to her own diminutive height. He was prematurely gray in his mid-thirties, the muscled lines of his sinewy body a mismatch for the light hair on his head.****

He wore spectacles, although they always caught Alicia off-guard with their slight blue tint. He insisted that it was because of the copious amount of hours spent in front of a computer screen but she thought it had something to do with his preferred shade in which to dress. He was a thing of beauty in a way she couldn’t express and knew most wouldn’t understand. He wasn’t always charming but was always honest which was charming in its own right. Alicia had come onto the squad from another precinct and taken up as the head detective, leaving her in charge of a merry band of misfits that included Voskanian. He wasn’t good in undercover ops because of his height; with enough makeup and hair-dye, Alicia was able to blend in better than most. This put her directly in the line of fire more often than not. ****

This was another one of the “often” situations and Charis was arguing vehemently against the choice. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in her abilities, on that point he was very clear. ****

It made her heart hurt because of the tense lines in his muscles that made her think, for a second, there was more than he was telling her.****

Running a freckled hand back through red hair, she lifted the other with a beer to her lips. They had settled on the fire escape of a building that had somehow survived the changes in New York City even as the U.S. transitioned to UNAS.****

It was her small apartment, left sparse because she had no reason to spruce it up. She was at the precinct more often than she was home, or at least it felt that way.****

That was largely why the contents of her fridge began with beer, included two cloves of garlic, and ended with the wilty stub of an onion. She had a scarce box of dried spaghetti and a can of tomato sauce; with a few scraps at the end of an Italian seasoning shaker, the remnants of a head of garlic, a splash at the end of an olive oil bottle, and the butt of an onion she was able to make a somewhat passable sauce. ****

Charis had shown up without preamble or warning of any sort, out of sorts for not the first time. He looked at her occasionally but couldn’t seem to keep his eyes on her for long. She could see the twitch of his jaw muscles as they clenched.****

“This is a bad idea,” he shook his head, holding his beer tightly while Alicia held hers loosely between three fingers. “It’s too deep undercover. It’s more than we’ve ever attempted before.”****

“Sebastian isn’t that scary,” Alicia replied, giving her partner a side-eye for the ages. “He’s not high enough on the food chain to raise alarm bells but high enough to get me where I need to go.”****

“You’re going to have to sleep with him,” Charis grunted, steely blue eyes narrowed as they looked past the bottle in his hands. ****

Alicia made a face. “Probably.” With a heavy sigh, she threw back the rest of her beer. “We’ve been over this, though. We’ve run out of options. It’s either this or keep letting them get away with their shit and not do anything.”****

Charis lit up a cigarette, leaning against the railing of Alicia's fire escape. “Isn’t there anybody else?”****

“What, you don’t want me to have to fuck a mobster but you’re okay throwing a rookie into this that’ll inevitably get caught out and shot for their trouble?”****

He winced at the accusation and also the realization that she was, as per usual, correct. “When you put it like that…”****

“Look,” she sighed, grabbing at his cigarette and taking a drag before offering it back to him, “I get it. I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect. I’d much rather spend my Friday nights on this fire escape with my partner than…” lifting the hand that held her beer, she gestured the empty bottle at the space in front of them, “...dress up like a girl from an old timey mob vid, bleach my hair to smithereens, and open my legs for fucking Alex Sebastian.”****

“What a stellar recommendation,” he snorted, finishing his own drink as he let smoke curl from his nostrils. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d miss me.”****

Alicia let out a bark of a laugh, grabbing his beer and hers before climbing through the open window back into her spartan apartment. Tossing the bottles in the bin for recycling (a repurposed milk crate because who had time to actually purchase a recycling bin), she shifted to the stove where she chucked the spaghetti noodles in the now-boiling water. After retrieving another two beers, she made her way back to the window.****

Sticking her hand, beer in grasp, through the opening she leaned against the peeling frame. “Miss you? All damn-near-seven feet of your lanky, data-crunching, sharp-shooting-trying-to-show-me-up you?” Alice grinned at him, pressing her hand against his shoulder. He caught her gaze with his own and it felt like a punch to the gut, the look he gave her. Her smile slid from her features and she nodded a little dumbly. “Yes, Voskanian. I’ll...miss you.”****

His hand moved faster than she expected it to, although she knew well his reflexes were impressive. His long fingers wrapped around her thin wrist and she was struck, briefly, by how she anticipated a different shape entirely. “Then...stay.”****

The depth in his voice, although it struck her as a bit off, spoke volumes that his words didn’t. Alicia’s throat felt dry and her chest felt hollow as she looked at him. ****

“Charis…” the name felt wrong and her red eyebrows furrowed as she turned back in from the window. He followed her, tossing his cigarette to the alley below and unfolding himself in her living room-bedroom. He took a long pull on his new beer, standing before her at what felt like twice her height. ****

“Let’s just...beat him within an inch of his life.”****

Alicia snorted and rolled her eyes, feeling like there was something more hanging between them that neither of them really dared to touch. “For some reason, I don’t think the brass would approve of that approach.”****

He shifted from seemingly relaxed to deeply intense, his beer left on whatever horizontal surface he could find before he stalked closer to her and gripped her upper arms. “Fuck the brass, Alicia.”****

Her words came out softer than normal, eyes glued to his, “...Doesn’t that defeat the point?” and she cracked a smile as he groaned, arms sliding behind her back to crush him to her as he buried his face against her neck. Her body stiffened at first before she relaxed into him, arms curving around his bent torso. ****

When he spoke, his breath ruffled her still-red hair although she expected something else to brush against her skin that left her feeling like something was amiss or, at the very least, missing. His voice had a gravelly depth to it but something was wrong there too. It wasn’t deep enough or the rumble was gone, or maybe an undercurrent...she couldn’t place it.****

“It’s going to be months,” he started, not loosening his grip on her and she didn’t fight against him. “Maybe _years_.” He sighed heavily and held her tighter. “I’ll only ever see you if I arrest you.”****

It would be strange; to go maybe years without seeing someone that had become her best friend. She had spent every day, often in close quarters, with the man in whose arms she was currently enveloped. She would see him rarely if _ever_ until she made it out to the other side.****

_If_, the thought struck her.****

She pulled back slowly, disentangling her body from hers in a way that had him begin to splutter an apology. Alicia moved one of her hands to his opposite shoulder and the other to his cheek.****

“This is a strange love affair,” she murmured, using the hand on his cheek to find the collar of his shirt and bend him close enough to kiss.****

There was part of her that considered for a moment that she might have completely misread him; that every glance he spared her, every sigh, every protest was because of his platonic affection. That she had never caught him looking at her chest, that he never let his eyes linger on the dip of her hip, that he had never once blushed at the suggestion of her climbing him like a tree - in response to which he had ‘accidentally’ spilled his boiling hot coffee into the lap of the offender officer. In the seconds between making the decision to press her lips to his and the fateful feel of him scooping her up to curve her body along his she replayed every instance of the last year of their back and forth. Had it only been that long? It felt like a decade, but in the best possible way.****

Due to their height disparity, Charis had lifted her fairly early on in their handsier moments. With her muscular legs wrapped around his torso and arms entwined around each other, when they broke to breath he shifted a hand to smooth bright hair from her flushed face.****

“Are we crazy?”****

“We’re cops,” she grinned, one hand buried in his shocking gray hair, the other resting over his shoulder. He held her like she weighed next to nothing, no apparent strain on his features even as he shifted them to her foldout. “...So, yes.”****

He let out a laugh, nervous at the edges and Alicia’s breath caught in her throat.****

“Am I making you uncomfortable?”****

As they settled onto the cushions of the mostly uncomfortable couch, Charis cupped her face in his hands. His expression was starry-eyed but serious. "You don't have to worry about making me uncomfortable. Nervous, yes. But never uncomfortable."****

“Nervous?” she repeated in disbelief. “Why are you nervous?”****

“As you said, this is a very strange love affair.”****

“Why do you think so?” Alicia asked, eyebrows furrowed. Charis’ hands smoothed her hair, stroked her cheek. Alicia watched him intently, her own hands on his shirtfront. Her heart thudded so hard in her chest she thought it was curious that he hadn’t remarked on it.****

“Maybe the fact that you don’t love me.”****

Eyes wide, Alicia’s fingers gripped his shirt front. He’d said it; he’d accused her something she couldn’t let stand. She would have never come out and started this on her own if he hadn’t gone and done the stupid thing with hugging her. Now, though: in for a penny, in for a pound.****

She tugged him closer but not enough to kiss. “When I don’t love you, I’ll let you know.”****

His eyes flickered from her gaze to her lips. Slowly his blue eyes drifted back to her green ones. “...You haven’t said anything.”****

Neither have you, she thought, more than a little put out by his insistence that she make the first move. But, in truth she could understand why; he was older, a senior officer, her partner. He knew that she had lost someone close to her prior to joining the department, knew too that her career was important to her. ****

All of this was probably why he loved her, not that she knew any of it. Her lust for life, her passion for truth, her willingness to open herself to another person. ****

Instead of calling him out for not speaking up either, she closed the distance between their lips and all but climbed into his lap. Breaking only enough to form words with her lips, she spoke against his, “Actions speak louder than words.”


	13. I Want Money and All Your Power, All Your Glory; Hallelujah, I Wanna Take You for All That You Got

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the readers, kudosers, and Bhell for commenting! I'm hoping I can keep getting two out a week but I should at least be able to do one a week (hopefully). I didn't lesson plan a week ahead like last time so I'm a bitttt behind but....ahh well, such is life.
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

When Alice did sleep, she often dreamed. They weren’t dreams in the sense that she had previously understood them; they were whole memories of lives that she could have sworn she had lived. And they left her feeling out of sorts for hours after she had scrubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

She had too much to worry about to be thinking of the too-tall, gray-haired cop that looked at her altogether too much like Garrus did. The Council had decided to erase most of the concept of Reapers from the entire Citadel, which left them wide open for the attack she believed to be inevitable. 

To be honest, if she hadn’t experienced everything firsthand she might’ve been skeptical too. After feeding the fish the Illusive Man would likely disapprove of and the hamster she knew that he would throw out the nearest airlock (and was surprised Miranda hadn’t), she slithered into the shower and washed away a dream that had gone from strange to explicit in what felt like seconds.

When she closed her eyes, gray turian hands overlaid the large pale human hands that she remembered against her freckled skin. It was difficult to focus when the memories of the dream about a memory she didn’t own combined with the real concepts of her favorite shipmate and true memories of her long-dead lover. It was enough to drive a girl crazy, or damn near it.

When she finished preparing for the day and made it to the elevator, she wasn’t exactly _ ready _. But, as per usual, she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. That party she had agreed to attend to help Kasumi with her little mission wasn’t going to wait for her just because she was thinking about something she had no right to consider.

Speak of the devil, the tall alien was waiting for her when she exited the elevator for the mess. 

“Shepard,” he started, eyes widening a little. Alice felt heat in her face when she saw him and cursed a response she had no control over.

His eyes widened a little more, then narrowed as they skipped over her. 

Fucking alien sense of smell, Alice considered. Clearing her throat, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes, Garrus? Were you looking for me?”

“I...uuhh,” he started shaking his head a little as if dispelling some thought process, “...I…”

Alice shifted her hands to her hips and gave him her best ‘Spit It Out’ look. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “...I thought I’d offer to come with you. I’ve been reading up on this Hock guy and he’s not good.”

“On a scale of like...Annoying drunk Harkin to Saleon, how bad?”

“Worse than,” he grimaced a little, scratching at the bandage that still remained over the right side of his face. “He’s like the worst kind of soulless merc with money and charm.”

Alice grimaced. “Well, I appreciate the intel but I’m pretty sure you’d stick out.”

“What do you mean?”

Alice blanched as she looked at him, coming upon Kasumi waiting for her with something small and black draped over one hand, a pair of heels and a fancy-ass looking necklace in the other. “I did some research too. He’s not exactly known for his close friendships with non-humans.”

“Even better,” Garrus responded and Kasumi stepped closer, all but her mouth hidden beneath her hood. 

“As much as I would like to see the look on his face,” she started, trailing her gaze all the way up to Garrus’ eyes, “Shepard’s right. No need to lend suspicion or even an extra-long glance our way.”

The turian trilled, his subharmonics betraying a level of frustration at being left out of the fray. “I’ll keep you in my ear. You let me know if you need me and I’m there.”

Alice watched him for an extra long moment before she nodded. He didn’t leave them as Kasumi handed over the goods in her arms. 

“You’ve got to look like you’re going to a party, Miss Alison Gunn,” the edge of Kasumi’s mouth curved up and Alice shook her head a little.

The name, Alison, sent a shiver down her spine. Flashes of a dark-haired Canadian’s hands against her skin, memories that weren’t hers but somehow overlaid her vision. When she saw Kasumi again, the technological goddess-slash-thief looked a little concerned. 

“Is it really that bad?” she asked, lifting the dress for Garrus to inspect.

Alice wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Garrus’ face make exactly that expression but he shook his head, vision trailing the length of the heels in Kasumi’s hand. “Ahh...no?”

The redhead reached for the dress and accessories but thought better of it. “We’re almost in position, aren’t we? The two of you, stand in front of me. I don’t particularly care but I imagine the Illusive Man would have something to say if I stripped in front of his crew. Or at least Miranda will.” 

“You’re something else, Shepard,” Kasumi grinned, laughing a little under her breath as she stepped around and faced out, to create a short wall between the Commander and the walkway that passed from the CIC to the cockpit. Garrus, although momentarily taken by a fit of apoplexy, recovered and took up a position beside the hooded human. 

“She’s just getting started,” he snorted, folding his arms over his chest.

Alice knew from past experiences that turians couldn’t blush but she wondered as she tried to push flashes of a life that belonged to someone else from her mind if he _ would be _ if he could. 

“Good,” the fully-clothed human responded, handing the dress back over her shoulder when Alice tapped on it. She continued speaking. “I’ve taken the liberty to lend credence to your persona. As I said, Alison Gunn - you run a small but talented band of mercs out of the Terminus System.”

Garrus made a sound that sounded distinctly like amusement and Alice shot the back of his head a look but focused her efforts on zipping up the damnable dress. It wasn’t going well. Instead, she told them to turn around and got the shoes and necklace from Kasumi before presenting her back to the two of them for one of them to help her.

She expected to feel the light, small-fingered touch of the other human and was heartily surprised when the smooth side of a talon slid along the outside of the zipper that lined her spine. Alice didn’t have the presence of mind to suppress her own shiver and merely tried to hide her blush as she turned around. Fortunately, Kasumi was speaking again and it gave her an excuse to focus on something else.

“I’ve given you a reputation by way of papers, witnesses...an article in Badass Weekly.”

Alice's eyes shifted to Kasumi’s face at the last statement.

“Just making sure you’re paying attention, _ Alison _...Just don’t start talking business with him and you’ll be fine.”

Alice was a little offended at the suggestion that she couldn’t hold her own in a conversation that required her to lie through her teeth but tempered that feeling with the understanding that Kasumi knew everything there was to know about this man. “Got it,” the redhead finalized and smoothed the front of her dress down, adjusting her collar and confirming her necklace was exactly where it should be. Rolling her shoulders back, she fluffed the hair on one side of her face and adjusted her features to something less Commander and more Party. 

“Not bad, Miss Gunn...close your eyes,” Kasumi’s lips quirked in a smirk before she lifted something towards Alice’s face. A scan ran across her features and her skin felt warm, tight, and then a little...heavy? Almost. “Okay, open.” 

When the Commander did, it was to look at a reflection of someone that looked _ vaguely _ like her. Same features, sure; the make-up or whatever it had been made her eyes look more gold than green. Whatever Kasumi had done made her hair a shade darker, like a brown with red undertones. Her freckles were practically nonexistent, her lips thinner and darker. There was something different about her nose that she couldn’t quite place. 

“Huh,” Alice breathed, lifting a hand to tug at her cheek. “Can’t say I expected that.”

“Not everyone is going to recognize the dead Spectre,” Kasumi began by way of explaining, “But it made sense to be more careful than not.”

It was weird; almost as weird as waking up in a body that was hers but missing so many years, so many scars, so much _ life_. The person that Kasumi had shown her in a compact was Alison Gunn, not Alice Shepard - whoever _ that _ was. 

“Commander, we’re at the drop point,” Joker called over the Comms and Alice nodded, although he couldn’t see her. She glanced to Garrus, who seemed to be just as taken by the transformation as she was.

“See you on the other side, Vakarian,” she grinned, trying to channel the concept of this person she was meant to be. Alice wasn’t the sort of person that went to parties, at least not any more. She certainly wasn’t the type of person that would gift a larger-than-life statue of fucking Saren unironically. 

“Don’t get dead,” he said, holding her gaze. He tipped his head forward towards her a little, as though mimicking the forehead connection she had shared with a turian before but not completing it. The familiar phrase reminded her again of Zersa and the gesture itself reminded her of Deccus; the rush of emotions, paired with fighting off memories of another Alison’s life, left her feeling a little raw as she and Kasumi settled into the shuttle.

They discussed the mission, the _ heist _ as it were, on the shuttle ride to Hock’s mansion. Kasumi’s affection for Keiji was evident and her heart went out to the other woman. 

“We’ll get it back,” she said resolutely, focusing her eyes on the outline of the lower half of her companion’s face. “I...There is little I wouldn’t do for a similar comfort.”

The burn of tears edged her vision but she dug her nails into her palms, steeling herself against the flood of thoughts that accompanied such a statement. They passed the rest of the flight by Kasumi telling Alice she should dress in such a way more often, Alice apologizing preemptively for whatever Gunn-appropriate nonsense she might have to pull, and Kasumi running through the plan quickly one last time.

When they arrived, Kasumi took up her position as Alice’s bodyguard or something like it. Alice set her shoulders to be a little more rounded, her gait a little more relaxed, and her face a little more approachable. She had spent years of her life in and out of different personas to make it through the orphanage, the streets, and the Alliance. What was one more act?

The statue, which she hadn’t laid eyes on before, made her eyebrows raise. Especially as the guard seemed to take umbrage with some part of it. 

And then, Hock came down the steps. It was almost like he’d planned it. He wasn't_ bad _ looking, she supposed, although Kasumi’s sarcastic commentary on the man had her expecting him to be better looking. Alice wondered if it was more the closeness of his eyes or the ridiculousness of his facial hair. Either way, _ Alison _ approved even if she didn’t.

And it appeared that he didn’t like Kasumi any more than the hooded woman liked him.

“I don’t like the look of your friend so she stays outside, simple as that.”

Alice felt a laugh bubble out of her throat, flighty and light as she offered a feigned long-suffering glance to Kasumi. “Oh, I told you that we should’ve gone with the _ red _ dress,” before shifting her attention fully back to Hock. She waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. “I understand, Mr. Hock. Good help and all that,” she laughed again and felt a thrill of triumph at the smirk that tugged at the criminal’s face. 

“Don’t I know it,” was his response as he layered a hand over her waist and took her elbow with his other. “Come, let us join the party. It is a shame I have not had a chance to meet you before, Ms. Gunn. I believe this...friendship might prove beneficial to us both.”

The implications in his statement made her feel sick and equally reminded her of Alicia’s memories or the story of them that played on loop in the deepest parts of her brain. She was pretty sure if she had still had a biotic implant it would’ve been fried by then. 

Her skin crawled beneath his touch and she cast a glance over her shoulder at Kasumi - to anyone else it would’ve looked like a reproachful employer. Alice hoped the other woman recognized it as a ‘let’s get this the fuck over with’ because that was, indeed, what she was screaming inside her head. 


End file.
